3 ms·

In 1922, a 14-year-old in the US could expect to live maybe another 40 years; in 2022, that number is likely to be at least 70. As a fraction of life expectancy

In 1922, a 14-year-old in the US could expect to live maybe another 40 years; in 2022, that number is likely to be at least 70. As a fraction of life expectancy, adolescence is actually relatively short right now.

iainmerrick 5y ago
Do you have a citation for that? I’m not sure it’s correct (although I don’t have any links of my own handy either, sorry!) My impression was that infant mortality was a great deal higher back then, but there wasn’t as big a disparity after that as people tend to assume. People didn’t hit old age in their 50s and 60s, they often lived into their 80s and beyond, just like today.
eggy 5y ago
Quality of life over quantity should be a metric somehow. Sure the internet and access for more people should raise the bar, but I am not sure about that. A lot of noise out there. Yes, an average life expectancy of 78 years in the US, sounds like a lot compared to around 60 in the 1920s, but with a current obesity prevalence of over 40% (obesity and severe obesity) in the US, I am not sure we can gauge a year-for-a-year in this comparison. And people wonder why an advanced country such as the US can get hit so bad by COVID, and blame it on each other, when over 70% of deaths and serious hospitalizations are linked to obesity. I think we can allow children to mature as early as they seem to be able to take it on, and not over pressure them while doing this; isn't that what being a parent is all about - assessing and nurturing together? I certainly had to grow up quick living below or at the poverty line in a bad neighborhood in my childhood and all that entailed, along with my relatives sent at age 18 to 22 to Korea, Vietnam, and other wars that followed. Children who grew/grow up on farms with chores and responsibilities and with similar corollaries in cities at an early age sounds better to me than coddling them into their mid-twenties, but that is my opinion from the various young people I have interviewed and worked with in white-collar and blue-collar jobs (construction, diving, ropework, machining, welding, etc...) as well as to the older and younger children I have raised in my family.

iainmerrick 5y ago

Do you have a citation for that? I’m not sure it’s correct (although I don’t have any links of my own handy either, sorry!) My impression was that infant mortality was a great deal higher back then, but there wasn’t as big a disparity after that as people tend to assume. People didn’t hit old age in their 50s and 60s, they often lived into their 80s and beyond, just like today.

eggy 5y ago

Quality of life over quantity should be a metric somehow. Sure the internet and access for more people should raise the bar, but I am not sure about that. A lot of noise out there. Yes, an average life expectancy of 78 years in the US, sounds like a lot compared to around 60 in the 1920s, but with a current obesity prevalence of over 40% (obesity and severe obesity) in the US, I am not sure we can gauge a year-for-a-year in this comparison. And people wonder why an advanced country such as the US can get hit so bad by COVID, and blame it on each other, when over 70% of deaths and serious hospitalizations are linked to obesity. I think we can allow children to mature as early as they seem to be able to take it on, and not over pressure them while doing this; isn't that what being a parent is all about - assessing and nurturing together? I certainly had to grow up quick living below or at the poverty line in a bad neighborhood in my childhood and all that entailed, along with my relatives sent at age 18 to 22 to Korea, Vietnam, and other wars that followed. Children who grew/grow up on farms with chores and responsibilities and with similar corollaries in cities at an early age sounds better to me than coddling them into their mid-twenties, but that is my opinion from the various young people I have interviewed and worked with in white-collar and blue-collar jobs (construction, diving, ropework, machining, welding, etc...) as well as to the older and younger children I have raised in my family.