As you plan for your retirement, one aspect to consider is how long your retirement is likely to be.

Will you need your retirement savings to last 15 years or 30 years?

Using life expectancy could give insight to balancing essential expenses and quality of life. Nobody wants to run out of money too soon or save so much that they miss out on purchases they could enjoy. It’s important to understand what life expectancy represents and does not represent. Before we dive into life expectancy, keep in mind that the type of benefit you will receive determines how much life expectancy matters to you.

Defined Benefit (DB) vs. Defined Contribution (DC)

For DB benefits, you don’t need to worry about outliving your retirement funds. That’s because a DB plan guarantees a payment for life, and possibly for your spouse’s life. Your employer pays for these benefits over your working years to make sure there is enough money for all future beneficiaries to have a monthly benefit for life.

However, DC benefits are the funds that have accumulated in an account through saving and investing over your working years. These benefits do not guarantee payments for life. Life expectancy may be a more relevant metric for members with some, or all, of their retirement benefits in DC accounts.

What is life expectancy?

Life expectancy is a statistical measure of how many years of life are expected to remain for a population. While life expectancy is often quoted from birth (age zero), it can also be quoted from other ages, such as 65. For retirement, it may be more helpful to think of life expectancy from your expected retirement age than from birth because life expectancy extends as we age. If the life expectancy from birth is 78 years, that doesn’t mean that a 79-year-old’s life expectancy is zero!

Because life expectancy is a population-wide statistic, it does not translate to an individual’s expected remaining lifetime. Unfortunately, this means it cannot tell you exactly how long you’re going to live. That’s a question for your doctor, not an actuary. But it does give you a starting point to think about how likely different outcomes can be.

Some people will live longer or shorter lives than the life expectancy statistic predicts. It may be more helpful to think about your chances of living longer than a certain number of years or beyond a certain age. The Actuaries Longevity Illustrator can help demonstrate these probabilities based on average expectations.

Life expectancy is also most often cited for one person. However, if your retirement involves a significant other, then you may need to consider joint life expectancy. The Actuaries Longevity Illustrator will also illustrate this concept. The results are sometimes surprising. For example¹, consider a 65-year-old nonsmoking couple in average health. The longevity illustrator shows that the man has a 50% probability of living to 86, the woman has a 50% probability of living to 89, but there is also a 50% probability that at least one of them lives to age 92!

More about life expectancy

If you just can’t get enough information about life expectancy, here are some other resources to learn more:

• Interpreting Pandemic-Related Decreases in Life Expectancy from the American Academy of Actuaries
• Social Security Administration’s Actuarial Life Table
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Fast Stats on Life Expectancy

¹Based on calculator information taken April 25, 2025.