Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2018
Chapter 4, and particularly Table 4, indicate a relatively narrow range of values for E(15), the life expectancy at age 15. This range, 12.3 to 34.6, just overlaps the lowest life expectancies in national censuses of the past 2 centuries (Arriaga 1968; Keyfitz and Flieger 1968). Even in the model life tables of Coale and Demeny (1966), “West” series, which are most applicable to pre-industrial populations, the lowest E(15) is 31.16. This particular value is found in a table which is an extrapolation of their regression lines well beyond the range of data on which the regressions were based.