Living Worlds

Research · Lifetimes · Oct 11, 2026

Women's life expectancy twenty years on, a year nobody had read

Met (women only)four countries, 2025 held out

The test at a glance

What it tests
Accuracy against reality: women's life expectancy at birth, twenty years ahead.
Data
Statistics Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands; forecast frozen on UN data up to 2005.
Held out
2025 values. Each forecast is the office's 2005 value plus the forecast twenty-year gain.
Compared against
None registered: an absolute bar.
Bar
Mean error at most 1.2 years over the four (1.0 the stretch goal).
Result
0.92 years: met, inside the stretch goal.

Living Worlds forecast women's life expectancy twenty years ahead within 0.92 years on average, inside the bar of 1.2 and the 1.0 stretch goal. Frozen on UN data up to 2005, each forecast a twenty-year gain added to the office's own 2005 figure, it was scored on 2025 figures from Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands, the four national offices that publish a single-year figure openly. Registered after the 2024 test missed and before any 2025 value was read. All four came out high (Sweden by 0.15 years, Finland 0.87, Norway 1.25, the Netherlands 1.39), and the same frozen forecast is registered against the UN's 2026 revision for every country.

Protocol, result and scorer

Protocol Frozen forecast National 2005 Scorer Result UN 2026 protocol

Next

Men, registered on 2025 figures nobody had read: met (the result). Both are registered against the UN's 2026 revision for every country.

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