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| 30184 | It’s not just about child mortality, life expectancy improved at all ages | its-not-just-about-child-mortality-life-expectancy-improved-at-all-ages | post | publish | <!-- wp:html --> <div class="blog-info">Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems.<br>This blog post draws on data and research discussed in our entries on <strong><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Life Expectancy</a> </strong>and <a href="https://owid.cloud/child-mortality"><strong>Child and Infant Mortality</strong></a>.</div> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 30188 --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It’s often argued that life expectancy across the world has <em>only</em> increased because child mortality has fallen. If this were true, this would mean that we’ve become much better at preventing young children from dying, but have achieved nothing to improve the survival of older children, adolescents and adults. Once past childhood, people would be expected to enjoy the same length of life as they did centuries ago.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This, as we will see in the data below, is untrue. Life expectancy has increased at all ages. The average person can expect to live a longer life than in the past, irrespective of what age they are.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Life expectancy by age in England and Wales</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The visualization shows the life expectancy in England and Wales over the last three centuries.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The red line shows the life expectancy for a newborn. Until the mid-19th century a newborn could expect to live around 40 years. At times, even less. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The rainbow-colored lines show how long a person could expect to live once they had reached that given, older, age. The light green line, for example, represents the life expectancy for children who had reached age 10.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The most striking development we see is the dramatic increase in life expectancy since the mid-19th century. Life expectancy at birth doubled from around 40 years to more than 81 years.{ref}The latest data on life expectancy in England and Wales can be found at the Office for National Statistics <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies">here</a>. At the time of writing, data beyond 2014 are only available as projections.{/ref} This achievement was not limited to England and Wales; since the late 19th century life expectancy <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#how-did-life-expectancy-change-over-time">doubled across all regions of the world</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>While England and Wales are not the only region that achieved this improvement, the last 150 years are the only <em>time</em> that humanity achieved anything like this. The evidence that we have for population health before modern times suggest that around a quarter of all infants died in the first year of life and almost half died before they reached the end of puberty (see <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past">here</a>) and there was no trend for life expectancy before the modern improvement in health: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?country=GBR">In the centuries</a> preceding this chart, life expectancy fluctuated between 30 and 40 years with no marked increase ever.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Life expectancy increased at all ages</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>A common criticism of the statement that life expectancy doubled is that this “only happened because child mortality declined”. I think that, even if this were true, it would be one of humanity’s greatest achievements, but in fact, this assertion is also just plain wrong. Mortality rates declined, and consequently life expectancy increased, <em>for all age groups</em>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The data shown in this chart makes this clear.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Let's see how life expectancy has improved without taking the massive improvements in child mortality into account. <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality">Child mortality</a> is defined as the share of children who die before reaching their 5th birthday. We therefore have to look at the life expectancy of a five-year-old to see how mortality changed without taking child mortality into account. This is shown by the yellow line. In 1841 a five-year-old could expect to live 55 years. Today a five-year-old can expect to live 82 years. An increase of 27 years.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The same is true for any higher age cut-off. A 50-year-old, for example, could once expect to live up to the age of 71. Today, a 50-year-old can expect to live to the age of 83. A gain of 13 years. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This is true for countries around the world. <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#a-comparative-perspective-life-expectancy-at-the-age-of-15">Here</a> is the data for the life expectancy of 15-year-olds around the world.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>A second striking feature of this visualization is the big decline of life expectancy in 1918. It was caused by a very large global influenza epidemic, the Spanish flu pandemic. I have studied the impact of this pandemic and especially it’s differential impact for different age-groups – the life expectancy of older people barely changed as the chart shows – in a text on the this pandemic <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/spanish-flu-largest-influenza-pandemic-in-history">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Yes, the decline of child mortality matters a lot for life expectancy. But as we’ve seen, the gains go much further than this. As we have seen here it was not only children that benefited from this progress, but people at all ages.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":30185,"sizeSlug":"large"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-800x532.png" alt="" class="wp-image-30185"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:separator --> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <!-- /wp:separator --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>…keep on reading on Our World in Data:</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"Another perspsective: Survival curves","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#a-different-view-on-mortality-by-age-survival-curves","mediaId":12427,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2017/07/Survival-Curves-UK.png","mediaAlt":"","className":"is-style-thin"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In our entry on life expectancy you find another perspective on the same data.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> | {
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2020-09-23 10:00:00 | 2024-02-16 14:22:50 | 1i5ZrLs8kbiem80gH2CL-Rd_Eay340p0UOI3CE9KoWgE | [
"Max Roser"
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It’s often argued that life expectancy across the world has only increased because child mortality has fallen. But this untrue. The data shows that life expectancy has increased at all ages. | 2020-03-03 17:21:38 | 2020-09-23 05:10:44 | https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013.png | {} |
Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems. This blog post draws on data and research discussed in our entries on **[Life Expectancy](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy) ** and [**Child and Infant Mortality**](https://owid.cloud/child-mortality) . It’s often argued that life expectancy across the world has _only_ increased because child mortality has fallen. If this were true, this would mean that we’ve become much better at preventing young children from dying, but have achieved nothing to improve the survival of older children, adolescents and adults. Once past childhood, people would be expected to enjoy the same length of life as they did centuries ago. This, as we will see in the data below, is untrue. Life expectancy has increased at all ages. The average person can expect to live a longer life than in the past, irrespective of what age they are. ## Life expectancy by age in England and Wales The visualization shows the life expectancy in England and Wales over the last three centuries. The red line shows the life expectancy for a newborn. Until the mid-19th century a newborn could expect to live around 40 years. At times, even less. The rainbow-colored lines show how long a person could expect to live once they had reached that given, older, age. The light green line, for example, represents the life expectancy for children who had reached age 10. The most striking development we see is the dramatic increase in life expectancy since the mid-19th century. Life expectancy at birth doubled from around 40 years to more than 81 years.{ref}The latest data on life expectancy in England and Wales can be found at the Office for National Statistics [here](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies). At the time of writing, data beyond 2014 are only available as projections.{/ref} This achievement was not limited to England and Wales; since the late 19th century life expectancy [doubled across all regions of the world](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#how-did-life-expectancy-change-over-time). While England and Wales are not the only region that achieved this improvement, the last 150 years are the only _time_ that humanity achieved anything like this. The evidence that we have for population health before modern times suggest that around a quarter of all infants died in the first year of life and almost half died before they reached the end of puberty (see [here](https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past)) and there was no trend for life expectancy before the modern improvement in health: [In the centuries](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?country=GBR) preceding this chart, life expectancy fluctuated between 30 and 40 years with no marked increase ever. **Life expectancy increased at all ages** A common criticism of the statement that life expectancy doubled is that this “only happened because child mortality declined”. I think that, even if this were true, it would be one of humanity’s greatest achievements, but in fact, this assertion is also just plain wrong. Mortality rates declined, and consequently life expectancy increased, _for all age groups_. The data shown in this chart makes this clear. Let's see how life expectancy has improved without taking the massive improvements in child mortality into account. [Child mortality](https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality) is defined as the share of children who die before reaching their 5th birthday. We therefore have to look at the life expectancy of a five-year-old to see how mortality changed without taking child mortality into account. This is shown by the yellow line. In 1841 a five-year-old could expect to live 55 years. Today a five-year-old can expect to live 82 years. An increase of 27 years. The same is true for any higher age cut-off. A 50-year-old, for example, could once expect to live up to the age of 71. Today, a 50-year-old can expect to live to the age of 83. A gain of 13 years. This is true for countries around the world. [Here](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#a-comparative-perspective-life-expectancy-at-the-age-of-15) is the data for the life expectancy of 15-year-olds around the world. A second striking feature of this visualization is the big decline of life expectancy in 1918. It was caused by a very large global influenza epidemic, the Spanish flu pandemic. I have studied the impact of this pandemic and especially it’s differential impact for different age-groups – the life expectancy of older people barely changed as the chart shows – in a text on the this pandemic [here](https://ourworldindata.org/spanish-flu-largest-influenza-pandemic-in-history). Yes, the decline of child mortality matters a lot for life expectancy. But as we’ve seen, the gains go much further than this. As we have seen here it was not only children that benefited from this progress, but people at all ages. <Image filename="Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013.png" alt=""/> _…keep on reading on Our World in Data:_ ### Another perspsective: Survival curves In our entry on life expectancy you find another perspective on the same data. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#a-different-view-on-mortality-by-age-survival-curves | {
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"rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world\u2019s largest problems.<br>This blog post draws on data and research discussed in our entries on <strong><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Life Expectancy</a> </strong>and <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/child-mortality\"><strong>Child and Infant Mortality</strong></a>.</div>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s often argued that life expectancy across the world has <em>only</em> increased because child mortality has fallen. If this were true, this would mean that we\u2019ve become much better at preventing young children from dying, but have achieved nothing to improve the survival of older children, adolescents and adults. Once past childhood, people would be expected to enjoy the same length of life as they did centuries ago.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This, as we will see in the data below, is untrue. Life expectancy has increased at all ages. The average person can expect to live a longer life than in the past, irrespective of what age they are.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Life expectancy by age in England and Wales</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The visualization shows the life expectancy in England and Wales over the last three centuries.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The red line shows the life expectancy for a newborn. Until the mid-19th century a newborn could expect to live around 40 years. At times, even less. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rainbow-colored lines show how long a person could expect to live once they had reached that given, older, age. The light green line, for example, represents the life expectancy for children who had reached age 10.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most striking development we see is the dramatic increase in life expectancy since the mid-19th century. Life expectancy at birth doubled from around 40 years to more than 81 years.{ref}The latest data on life expectancy in England and Wales can be found at the Office for National Statistics <a href=\"https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies\">here</a>. At the time of writing, data beyond 2014 are only available as projections.{/ref} This achievement was not limited to England and Wales; since the late 19th century life expectancy <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#how-did-life-expectancy-change-over-time\">doubled across all regions of the world</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While England and Wales are not the only region that achieved this improvement, the last 150 years are the only <em>time</em> that humanity achieved anything like this. The evidence that we have for population health before modern times suggest that around a quarter of all infants died in the first year of life and almost half died before they reached the end of puberty (see <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past\">here</a>) and there was no trend for life expectancy before the modern improvement in health: <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?country=GBR\">In the centuries</a> preceding this chart, life expectancy fluctuated between 30 and 40 years with no marked increase ever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Life expectancy increased at all ages</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>A common criticism of the statement that life expectancy doubled is that this \u201conly happened because child mortality declined\u201d. I think that, even if this were true, it would be one of humanity\u2019s greatest achievements, but in fact, this assertion is also just plain wrong. Mortality rates declined, and consequently life expectancy increased, <em>for all age groups</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The data shown in this chart makes this clear.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let’s see how life expectancy has improved without taking the massive improvements in child mortality into account. <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality\">Child mortality</a> is defined as the share of children who die before reaching their 5th birthday. We therefore have to look at the life expectancy of a five-year-old to see how mortality changed without taking child mortality into account. This is shown by the yellow line. In 1841 a five-year-old could expect to live 55 years. Today a five-year-old can expect to live 82 years. An increase of 27 years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same is true for any higher age cut-off. A 50-year-old, for example, could once expect to live up to the age of 71. Today, a 50-year-old can expect to live to the age of 83. A gain of 13 years. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is true for countries around the world. <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#a-comparative-perspective-life-expectancy-at-the-age-of-15\">Here</a> is the data for the life expectancy of 15-year-olds around the world.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A second striking feature of this visualization is the big decline of life expectancy in 1918. It was caused by a very large global influenza epidemic, the Spanish flu pandemic. I have studied the impact of this pandemic and especially it\u2019s differential impact for different age-groups \u2013 the life expectancy of older people barely changed as the chart shows \u2013 in a text on the this pandemic <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/spanish-flu-largest-influenza-pandemic-in-history\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, the decline of child mortality matters a lot for life expectancy. But as we\u2019ve seen, the gains go much further than this. As we have seen here it was not only children that benefited from this progress, but people at all ages.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-800x532.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30185\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-800x532.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-400x266.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-150x100.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-768x511.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-1536x1022.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-2048x1363.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u2026keep on reading on Our World in Data:</em></p>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#a-different-view-on-mortality-by-age-survival-curves</link-url>\n <title>Another perspsective: Survival curves</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>In our entry on life expectancy you find another perspective on the same data.</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"538\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2017/07/Survival-Curves-UK-768x538.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2017/07/Survival-Curves-UK-768x538.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2017/07/Survival-Curves-UK-150x105.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2017/07/Survival-Curves-UK-400x280.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2017/07/Survival-Curves-UK-750x525.png 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n </block>\n\n\n<p></p>\n",
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"rendered": "It\u2019s often argued that life expectancy across the world has only increased because child mortality has fallen. But this untrue. The data shows that life expectancy has increased at all ages.",
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