About

What it does

It pairs a life in your country with a life somewhere else in the world and walks both from birth to death through school, work, health, and decisions. The aim is to think about how much of a life is choice and how much is structure: the same choice leads to different paths in different countries.

If you pick a birth year, you can also see how the big events of that era (wars, economic crises, disasters) set the two lives apart.

What it is not

• It is not a tool that predicts your lifespan or your future.
• It does not score or rank the worth of a life.
• It is not medical, financial, or legal advice.

How it is built

Lifespans come from United Nations life tables by age and sex. Events such as school, work, and health are based on public statistics such as the World Bank's. Where no statistic exists we use design values and label them as such. See Methodology for the calculations and Data sources for the material used.

There is no sign-in or account. Calculations run on your own device.

Who runs it

Two Cradles is an independent project built and maintained by an individual operator. Send error reports and feedback through the Contact page. If you tell us something is factually wrong, we will check and fix it.