Elsevier

Experimental Gerontology

Volume 35, Issues 9–10, December 2000, Pages 1111-1129
Experimental Gerontology

Demography of longevity: past, present, and future trends

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0531-5565(00)00194-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Life expectancy at birth has roughly tripled over the course of human history. Early gains were due to a general improvement in living standards and organized efforts to control the spread of infectious disease. Reductions in infant and child mortality in the late 19th and early 20th century led to a rapid increase in life expectancy at birth. Since 1970, the main factor driving continued gains in life expectancy in industrialized countries is a reduction in death rates among the elderly. In particular, death rates due to cardiovascular disease and cancer have declined in recent decades thanks to a variety of factors, including successful medical intervention. Based on available demographic evidence, the human life span shows no sign of approaching a fixed limit imposed by biology or other factors. Rather, both the average and the maximum human life span have increased steadily over time for more than a century. The complexity and historical stability of these changes suggest that the most reliable method of predicting the future is merely to extrapolate past trends. Such methods suggest that life expectancy at birth in industrialized countries will be about 85–87 years at the middle of the 21st century.

Section snippets

Prehistoric estimates

We do not know much about how long humans lived before 1750. Around that time, the first national population data began being collected in Sweden and Finland. For earlier eras, we have some life tables constructed for municipal populations, members of the nobility, and other groups that were probably not representative of the national population at large (e.g. Lee et al., 1993, Hollingsworth, 1977). After 1750 and even today, we have extensive and highly reliable mortality information for only

Outlooks for the future

It is impossible to make a firm scientific statement about what will happen in the future. As scientists, demographers can only present the details of well-specified scenarios, which serve as forecasts or projections of the future. They may also help by clearly defining the terms of the debate — for example, by discussing what is meant by the notion of “limits to life span.” Limits possibly affecting the increase of human longevity are the first topic of this section, followed by a discussion

Conclusion

The rise of longevity is one of the greatest achievements of human history. It is the result of a complex set of changes beginning several centuries ago. Prior to the 1930s, most of this decline was due to factors other than medical therapy (McKeown, 1979) and is generally attributed to improvements in living conditions and public health. With the advent of anti-bacterial drugs in the 1930s and 1940s, medical treatment began to play an important role in these changes, and this role has expanded

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging, R01-AG11552.

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