Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34918737›Full record

ArticleDemography2022

In a Stationary Population, the Average Lifespan of the Living Is a Length-Biased Life Expectancy.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Dennis Feehan

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Demography, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Age-based approach to characterize the dynamics of cellular processes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Elizabeth Wrigley-FieldDepartment of Sociology and Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3489-4279
Dennis FeehanDepartment of Demography, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-7008-4375

Funding

Life Course Center Program Development CoreP30AG066613 · NIA · UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA · PI Sarah M Flood · 2020 to 2026
$5.0M
Minnesota Population Center Science and Technical CoreP2CHD041023 · NICHD · UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA · PI THERESA LOUISE OSYPUK · 2016 to 2026
$4.3M
Dev-Core-001P2CHD073964 · NICHD · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · PI EDWARD ANDREW MIGUEL · 2019 to 2026
$2.9M
NIA NIH HHS P30 AG066613NICHD NIH HHS P2C HD041023NICHD NIH HHS P2C HD073964
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

What is the average lifespan in a stationary population viewed at a single moment in time? Even though periods and cohorts are identical in a stationary population, we show that the answer to this question is not life expectancy but a length-biased version of life expectancy. That is, the distribution of lifespans of the people alive at a single moment is a self-weighted distribution of cohort lifespans, such that longer lifespans have proportionally greater representation. One implication is that if death rates are unchanging, the average lifespan of the current population always exceeds period life expectancy. This result connects stationary population lifespan measures to a well-developed body of statistical results; provides new intuition for established demographic results; generates new insights into the relationship between periods, cohorts, and prevalent cohorts; and offers a framework for thinking about mortality selection more broadly than the concept of demographic frailty.

Indexed as

Life ExpectancyLongevityCohort StudiesHumansMortalityPopulation DynamicsLength-biased samplingLife expectancyMortality selectionPrevalent cohortSize bias

Identifiers

PMID34918737
PMCPMC8810607

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.