The number of known pulsars, which is currently 149, is sufficiently large to permit an investigation of their distribution with respect to various parameters. The selection effects which have determined the sample of known pulsars are considered and approximations are derived concerning the true distributions of pulsars with respect to period, luminosity, distance from the galactic plane, and the distance from the galactic center. From the measured proper motions of nine nearby pulsars it is shown that the mean age of observable pulsars cannot exceed approximately 2,000,000 years. The obtained results suggest that many pulsars may be formed in events which do not involve the explosive detonation of a high-mass star.
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Taylor et al. (1977) studied this question.