How Long People Live in A Religious State? Evidence Based on the Proposed Indicator of Religious Life Expectancy

Abstract

Most of the humans in the world live their lives by following a certain religion. Empirical research is needed to explore the time span of religion in people’s lives. This paper proposed an indicator that calculates the average number of years that a person lives in a religious state. By taking Pakistan as a case study and using the secondary data of agespecific mortality rates, eight different methods i.e., linear method, exponential method with second and third degree, Farr’s method, Chiang’s method, Reed and Merrell’s method, Greville’s method and Fregany’s method are used to calculate the life expectancy and religious life expectancy. It is a well-known fact that females live longer than males. Our findings confirmed this fact; 65.70 years male life expectancy at birth and 67.59 years female life expectancy at birth in Pakistan. A similar trend is observed that female religious life expectancy 45.93 years is higher compared to their male counterparts 36.45 years. Though based on different methods the pattern of religious life expectancy values is almost similar. Notably, the proposed index is an easy to estimate measure and it could best be used to calculate the religious life span of individuals belonging to other divine religions of the world.