The Value of Life - Draft

A study: people value their own life at $5 million.

Wow, economics. Way to sound evil.

Can you quantify the expected value of life? There is supposedly a difference between how you value your own life and the value of your life to society (how much society benefited because you were alive), e.g. career earnings + inventions that continue to benefit society + the happiness that you provided to friends, family members, and others. Happiness might be quantified by the cost of substitutes, but, then again, it might not be possible.

How did they get the figure for the value of your own life? Calculated this way? Say an airbag reduces your chance of dying by 0.3%, and you are willing to pay $60 for it, so by extrapolating it to 100%, they got the total figure. (But one can argue that the sum of individual parts is worth less than the total.)

leisure vs. consumption, complements