| > And there have been times in the last millennium when the median would have reflected high infant mortality Sure. During the peak of the Spanish flu, median probably would have been 18 years old or even worse, given infant mortality was close to 50%. I found some numbers: * the US had 200.000 deaths (7.7%) for unintentional injury + suicide + homicide * the "years of potential life lost" are estimated to be 35 on average for unintentional injury + suicide + homicide, or 7 million man years. * the life expectancy in the US in 2015 was 78.8 years Putting things together, the life expectancy for people who don't die from unintentional injury + suicide + homicide is 81.5 (78.8 + 35 * 0.077). I couldn't find data for median age at death in the US. But in LA county in 2012 the median age at death for men was 74 years and 82 years for women, while life expectancy was 79.0 and 83.7 respectively. So median age at death is actually _lower_ than average. That's actually not surprising if you think about it. If most people die old, there are many people that live even a few years longer than the average. These easily offset the fewer people who die of violent death when computing the average. The US has 5 million people over 85, which account for several tens of millions of man years of "life gained". Sources: * https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html * http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/dca/data/documents/mortalit... * http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bOUTEt_... |