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My understanding is that the doubling in life expectancy over the last 150-200 years was primarily due to the drastic reduction in infant mortality and eliminat
by DebtDeflation 8y ago
My understanding is that the doubling in life expectancy over the last 150-200 years was primarily due to the drastic reduction in infant mortality and elimination of most infectious diseases. If you only look at life expectancy from the point of reaching adulthood, the change hasn't been nearly as dramatic.
- matt4077 8y agoThat’s a common “fun fact” but it’s been so overdone people are probably now erring more to the other side. Here’s a graph: http://www.roperld.com/science/graphics/LifeExpectancyForDiffAgesFit.jpg http://www.roperld.com/science/graphics/LifeExpectancyForDif... As an example, in the 20th Century, life expectancy at birth rose from about 40 to 77 years. But for 20 year olds, it also went from 34 to 59 additional years.
- Retric 8y agoThat does not seem to be accurate for the US from 1900 looking at a life table. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life1890-1910.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life1890-1910.pdf Page 52 Men in 1900 life expectancy at 20: 42.48 Page 54 Women in 1900 life expectancy at 20: 43.6 The Social Security life table for 2016 lists 56.91 years at 20 a gain of ~13.9 years in the last 116. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
- raverbashing 8y ago56 looks like a small number compared with other developed countries
- tgb 8y agoIt's additional years of life - so 76 total.
- nottorp 8y agoAnd they are falling a bit into that trap: "In 1850, the combined life expectancies of men and women stood at around 40 years in the United States, Canada, Japan and much of Europe." But if you eliminate life expectancy at birth, you'll notice that there hasn't been a drastic improvement. It's been discussed on HN previously, and I think adult life expectancy has only improved by less than 20 years over the last several hundred. (Someone with sources feel free to correct me).
- aaron695 8y agoThis meme has to die. Yes it's interesting that childhood mortality has a larger effect than expected by laypeople. But we have still made huge improvements, look at the current difference between countries - https://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-data/life-expectancy-at-60/ https://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-da... But yes this article confuses the issue, and yes it's hard to get a good graph showing life expectancy at post infant levels. Even eliminating smoking in countries (Which is basically happening) is 1 or 2 years - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62363/table/ch5.t2/?report=objectonly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62363/table/ch5.t2/?re...
- Conjoiner 8y agoAnd if you add in modern abortions to life expectancy then the view also changes.
- yeuxverte 8y agoAnd if you add in sperm lost in condoms to life expectancy then the view also changes.
- Conjoiner 8y agoThere is nothing magical about passing through a vagina to with life should start counting from then.
- sctb 8y ago> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- bregma 8y agoYes. When most people say "life expectancy" they mean "life expectancy at birth." Even in the depths of the middle ages when life expectancy at birth was around 30 years, most people who lived to adulthood lived into their 60s and 70s.
- toasterlovin 8y agoI think the OP is specifically trying to say that most lay people do not actually mean "life expectancy at birth" when they use the term "life expectancy", but instead mean "how long I, a person who has reached adulthood, can expect to live". I agree with OP, FWIW.