Daniel Ust wrote:
>On Friday, August 25, 2000 9:16 AM Pvthur@aol.com wrote:
> > On last Wednesdays Oprah I heard Dr. Phil Mcgraw state an extropian notion
>in
> > answer to a question about May/December romance. He said if you live
>another
> > ten years, your life expectancy will reach 125 years. Another ten, 250
>years.
>
>What surprises me more is that life expectancy went up so high in the first
>half of the 20th century -- continuing a trend from the 19th -- in the West,
>but then seemed to level off in the upper 70s. Why didn't the trend
>continue, especially since the estimate for maximum human lifespan is about
>125 years?
>
>Any ideas? explanations? corrections? speculations? rants?
Age-specific mortality rates have fallen at a steady exponential rate for
the entire last century. The classic source on this is
Modeling and Forecasting U. S. Mortality, by Ronald D. Lee,
Lawrence R. Carter, J. American Statistical Association,
87(419):659-671, Sep., 1992.
There was also a recent Nature article showing that this model applies
also to a half dozen other countries.
Given the initial age distribution, this steady exponential decline in
age-specific rates produced a rapid decline in life expectancy in the
early part of this century, and a slower decline in the later part. But
the fundamental trend has remained amazingly steady.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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