[yesbabyyes]

A very interesting post indeed. Another common mistake many people seem to make is when comparing historical life expectancies. Most of our progress in prolonging human life is due to minimizing the infant mortality rate. This means that people who survived infancy and childhood could make it to an old age even in historical times.

[refurb]

This is true and a huge annoyance to me when people say "When social security was first put in place, most people didn't live to collect it!"

This is of course false. Back in the early 1900's when life expectancy was only around 60, if you survived your childhood, you'd likely live to 70 or 80.

[danielweber]

Back in the early 1900's when life expectancy was only around 60, if you survived your childhood, you'd likely live to 70 or 80.

This didn't seem right so I checked. A 20 year old in 1900 could expect to live to 62. In 1939 (4 years after SS was first put in place) a 20 year old would live to 67.

Interpretted as a median age of death, you are right that more than 50% of 20 year-olds collected at least 1 check, but a significant fraction died before retirement age, and they generally didn't say in retirement for decades.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html I used white males, and women lived longer but non-whites lived shorter.

[refurb]

Thanks for looking up actual numbers!

I guess my point also has to do with what "averages" mean. In 1939, a 20 year old might _on average_ live to 67, but that means a number would die at 47, but a similar amount would live to 87.

[danielweber]

It's also inappropriate to compare "infant mortality" across countries. A 490-gram baby that is born with trouble breathing and dies in 2 hours will count as a stillbirth in some countries and an infant mortality in others.