Business Insider takes note of the average life expectancies in different countries of the world:
LONDON — The World Economic Forum has released data showing which countries have the highest and lowest life expectancies.
Those in the top 10 are all Asian and European countries, while those in the bottom 10 — out of 137 countries worldwide — are all in Africa.
The highest is Hong Kong, not a country at all. The highest average life expectancy for a country is Japan at 83.8. As you might expect average life expectancy in the U. S. is lower than that at 78.7.
Here’s my question. Is “average life expectancy” a meaningful statistic? I don’t think it is. Median, maybe, but even that is a stretch. For one thing when as high a percentage of the residents of a country live somewhere else for their first 15 or 20 years and that was a poor or lower middle income country, I’m not at all sure what you can conclude from the statistic.
“… I’m not at all sure what you can conclude from the statistic.”
Sure you are. The World Economic Forum has an ax to grind.
It’s life expectancy at birth. The differences between countries mostly reflect infant and child care. If you get to five, you have a good chance in most countries of getting to 70.
I think “average” is fine; it might be interesting to see a range instead of a single point because there is going to be a lot of variation within a country. I guess the U.S. would have more variation because of more racial/ethnic groups, more violence and drug problems and higher poverty.
It is meaningful, but the meaning is not clear when it comes to its absolute value. However, as a trending tool it has a lot of value.
Steve
That’s a good point, steve, but I’m still skeptical. I think averages are most useful when the data are in normal distribution with small standard deviation.