December 13, 2006
Reality Check
Earlier today I was perusing an economics manuscript that made the argument that virtually all of the improvement in life expectancy in recent centuries has been about child mortality, and that prospects in old age aren't a hell of a lot changed.
So here are some interesting statistics I found. In 1850, life expectancy at birth was 38.3, a figure that had risen to 78.7 by 2004 (an improvement of 40.4 years!). Life expextancy at 60 is a slightly different story: it rose only 5.3 years (from 15.6 to 20.9 years).
We (I admit, I) have sort of had this creeping delusion of immortality, this sense that with improvements in modern medical science, most of us will live a long, long time. And maybe we will (you never know).
But the cold hard weight of experience to date is pretty unavoidable here: our outlook in old age hasn't improved a whole hell of a lot. I haven't worked this out yet, but I suspect that the reason we are seeing so many, for instance, octogenarians, is primarily that so many more people are making it to 60, rather than that many more people making it from 60 to 80.
Carpe diem.
Posted by dag at December 13, 2006 12:45 PM