The Life Tables Behind the Death Clock
The death clock is calibrated to life expectancy at birth from United Nations (UN) World Population Prospects 2024, by country and sex, and cross-checked against World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Observatory life tables.
An actuarial life table is defined as a table that gives, for each age in a population, the annual death probability q(x), the survivors and the remaining life expectancy. These tables set the baseline for the model behind the number.
- Author
- Jacob V.
- Last reviewed
- Next review
Reviewed against the published methodology and UN World Population Prospects 2024.
Which life tables the clock reproduces
The clock uses three published sets of life tables: one calibration target, United Nations World Population Prospects 2024, and two cross-checks, the WHO Global Health Observatory tables and, for the United States only, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) tables.
- United Nations World Population Prospects 2024 reports 2023 estimates of life expectancy at birth by country and sex, the calibration target.
- WHO Global Health Observatory life tables report abridged 2021 tables by country and sex, a pandemic year, to age 85+, a cross-check.
- NCHS, Mortality in the United States, 2024 reports 2024 final data, US life expectancy at birth 76.5 for men and 81.4 for women, the US cross-check only.
Odds of dying by age: reading q(x)
In the table below, q(x) is the probability that a person aged exactly x dies before reaching age x + 1.
| Age x | q(x), men | q(x), women | 1 in N | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | 0.00261 | 0.00140 | 1 in 383 (men), 1 in 717 (women) | UN WPP 2024, 2023 life table |
| 50 | 0.00481 | 0.00296 | 1 in 208 (men), 1 in 338 (women) | UN WPP 2024, 2023 life table |
| 60 | 0.01095 | 0.00678 | 1 in 91 (men), 1 in 147 (women) | UN WPP 2024, 2023 life table |
| 70 | 0.02110 | 0.01375 | 1 in 47 (men), 1 in 73 (women) | UN WPP 2024, 2023 life table |
| 80 | 0.05116 | 0.03727 | 1 in 20 (men), 1 in 27 (women) | UN WPP 2024, 2023 life table |
The annual death probability q(x) equals 0.00261 for a 40-year-old US man in the 2023 life table, about 1 in 383, and the same reading applies to the row for each attained age and sex.
When the tables were last checked
The life tables behind the clock were last checked on 3 October 2026 against UN World Population Prospects 2024 and the WHO Global Health Observatory.
Each of the life tables is bounded by the site’s re-check rule, under which no page stands longer than the site’s re-verification interval without being checked again.
The UN calibration target reports 2023 estimates of life expectancy at birth by country and sex, for example 76.9 years for US men and 81.8 for US women (UN WPP 2024, 2023 estimates).
The WHO cross-check reports the WHO Global Health Observatory life tables for 2021, a pandemic year, so its abridged tables include pandemic mortality.
Why other clocks use different tables
Other death clocks use different tables, or a single national average, which is one reason their results differ.
Different tables are one of the reasons set out in why death clocks disagree.
Period versus cohort tables
A period life table applies the death rates of one calendar period to every age, while a cohort life table follows people born in the same year through the rates they actually meet.
The clock applies period tables, the UN World Population Prospects 2024 life table for 2023 by single year of age, so the result assumes that one period’s death rates hold at every later age.