I often hear that the life expectancy for cats is 15 years for indoor and 5 years for outdoor cats. I am skeptical of this estimate and wonder if the figures are made up by people who have a bias. Does anyone know of any actual DATA these estimates are based on.

Please don’t give a link to a web page that just gives an estimate without any information about how the data was collected. There are thousands of those. I want to know how their conclusions were reached. Animals don’t have death certificates so where do they get their figures?

I wonder if the outdoor data includes stray & feral, neutered and not, vaccinnated & not. Are indoor/outdoor cats considered “outdoor”?

Cats who go outdoors may be at higher risk of certain injuries, but those who escape those risks may live longer than indoor cats because they get more exercise & are not overweight. My indoor/outdoor cat died at age 21 and I am hearing more & more about indoor/outdoor cats being the ones who live the longest.
Interesting point Matisse. I have not seen any actual DATA for any country, only conclusions without any statement of the basis for those conclusions. Yet so many people say “statistics show . . .” or “it has been *proven*” that indoor cats live much longer than outdoor cats. It seems to be one of those things that people hear and believe because it was on the internet and then repeat as if it were fact.
princessfifi, you just stated a conclusion based on absolutely nothing so far as I can tell. Great you had an indoor cat live to 22. I had an outdoor/indoor live to 21. Kind of blows away your conclusion doesn’t it?