Gwynne Dyer: Dealing with the increase in life expectancy
One hesitates to quote Dave Barry, but sometimes you just have to: “Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once.”
The most startling statistic I have seen in years is this: since the 1840s, life expectancy in the developed countries has increased by three months per year. That rate of increase continues to apply today. Unless it deviates radically from its historic pattern, now almost two centuries old, the children born in 2000 have a life expectancy of around 100 years.
That sounds so extreme that you have to pick the numbers apart before you’ll accept them. Let’s see. 1840 to now is about 160 years. Life expectancy in the United States and Britain was about 40 in 1850. Today it’s about 80. A 40-year increase in 160 years—yup, that’s three months more every year.
Of course, you suspect that there’s a hidden front-end load in this statistic: that most of the increase in average lifespan came during the first century of this period, when better food, clean water and antibiotics were suppressing the infectious diseases that killed so many people in childhood. And it’s true that that’s the phenomenon that drove the process in the early decades of the period—but the rate has remained steady right down to the present.
By 1971, the diseases of childhood had been largely suppressed, and as a result life expectancy for a man in Britain, for example, had risen to 68 years. For a woman, it was 72. Most further increases in life expectancy could only come from medical and lifestyle changes that lengthened survival rates in the later decades of life.
But life expectancy at birth went on rising. It is now 77 for a British male, and 81 for a female. British people are living ten years longer than in 1971, which was only 42 years ago. So average lifespan is still going up at the same old rate: three months per year.
And there’s more good news for these longer-lived people: the incidence of crippling diseases and disabilities is still mostly a phenomenon of the last decade of life, even though that last decade is now a lot farther down the road. Indeed, demographers now make a distinction between the “young old” (in their 70s and 80s, mostly still independent and in reasonable shape physically) and the “oldest old” (in their 90s and 100s, mostly frail and in need of care).
The same transformation is now taking place in the rapidly industrialising countries like China and India. Indeed, like the industrialisation process itself, it is happening even faster. Life expectancy in China was only 42 years as recently as 1950. It’s now 75 years, which means it was going up at SIX months per year for most of that period. (It has now slowed down to about the same pace as in the older developed countries.)
However, there is a rather large economic problem hidden in these statistics. The proportion of the adult population that is over 65 years old, once only a small fraction of the whole, is now heading up towards one-third of the total. It is simply not possible for all of them to “retire” and be supported by the two-thirds who are of “working age”.
The problem is even bigger for countries where the birth rate has fallen far below replacement level like China, Japan and Italy. As the elderly population expands, the working-age population in these countries is actually shrinking, and it is possible to foresee a time when there will be as many retired people as there are workers.
That is undoubtedly why a Chinese government think-tank recently recommended that the regime end its one-child policy and allow everyone to have two children. “China has paid a huge social cost and it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs, and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance.” In plain Chinese, what they mean is that people who were only allowed one child were getting rid of the girl babies and trying again.
That particular problem is confined to societies like India and China where sons are still seen as more desirable than daughters. But in virtually every country except those in Africa (most of which still have high birth rates and, in some cases, relatively short lifespans), the economic problem caused by longer life expectancy looms large on the horizon.
Something has to give here, and it is probably the retirement age. Increasing numbers of over-65s are continuing to work, at least part-time. In fact, the latest statistics show that almost half of the increase in employment in Britain since the beginning of the recession in 2008 has been of people over 65, mostly in self-employment or part-time work. Many other countries are experiencing the same phenomenon. Welcome to the new world.
Comments
6 Comments
e.a.f.
Mar 28, 2013 at 4:24pm
All of the above may be true, but the north american diet is not healthy. there has been an increase in obesity which has led to early dietics, along with heart problems and high blood pressure. We may actually see a decline in life expectancy because people simply aren't looking after themselves.
As pollution continues to be a problem we may also see more people dying at an earlier age from a variety of cancers.
if people do live to be much older the world is going to be much more crowded. China's decision to go to a two child family is better for their society as a whole. It currently has 30 million more men than women. These men have no hope of ever marrying. Situations such as these do not bode well for a society.
dru
Mar 28, 2013 at 7:19pm
If China hadn't implemented that one-child policy, they'd have an ADDITIONAL 450 million people.
So their mission to curb population growth was accomplished. But I think reversing that policy,just to put a band-aid on this new sociological problem of too many men, isn't the way to go.
It's like taking 1 step forward, and 2 steps back.
So, a person born in 2000 can expect to live to 100?
Golly! But we should keep in mind that "life expectancy" is a very broad measure.
If that baby born in 2000 is born into a poor family, with little access to proper health care and even education, its life expectancy'd be less than 100.
Life expectancy is just an average that doesn't usually take into account class inequality WITHIN a country.
In any nation, educated wealthy can expect to live longer than the struggling poor.
McRocket
Mar 31, 2013 at 4:00pm
Simple.
After 75 (for everyone born after 1970)...zero government assistance except emergency food/shelter/medical (soup kitchen/flop house/emergency ward).
Patrick
Apr 3, 2013 at 10:06am
Perhaps India and China could benefit from homosexuality. It would be easy to promote on media and many people would take to it easily.
Because of the excess of men who cannot find partners, there is dissatisfaction and the potential for conflict. But they can have each other, they can have love, intimacy, satisfaction with life.
Consider eastern European countries such as Romania. When foreign companies come in and create jobs they hire women. Romanian women have a work ethic and value education. The men are macho and are not as productive as labour.
So, we have a Romania where women feel more and more contempt for their men as they lose their value as earners. But Romanian men have discovered homosexuality and they are benefiting from it.
Now, a Romanian man can have a partner who respects him, appreciates him. And the two of them can talk about cars and football. Bonus!
David English
Apr 3, 2013 at 8:31pm
Sometimes things out of left field can throw a wrench into carefully thought out logic. Say, for example, that computers might become smarter than people around 2045 (the latest estimate).
What happens then? Well, 50% unemployment will seem like we've not built enough robots yet, or rather our robots haven't built enough robots yet. Why should we work? If, or rather when we actually get to that point, the whole "retirement" issue will simply disappear. We'll all be retired, from birth.
We'll simply have to find something else to define our social stratification. There won't be any need to keep people poor because the "rich" people won't want creepy, untrustworthy, and inefficient human servants around. The "poor" people won't want human servants either. Robots, being produced by robots in factories built by robots from raw materials extracted by robots, will be cheap. The only things worth anything will be stuff of artificial value, like ugly ceramic human-made plates, mostly because no humans will bother making them. When computers/robots get better at everything from sex to killing, every (and I mean EVERY) human occupation will become voluntary. Old age will become a non-problem from the young. They won't have to care for them, not physically, not financially, nothing. They'll just be people the young are obligated to visit on Christmas, maybe.
It's coming... might get a bit rocky if it's a little late, but it will come.
Mark Mosby
Apr 14, 2013 at 10:33am
The folks who predict a global population of 9 billion by mid-century apparently aren't aware of the limitations and consequences of Peak Oil and Peak Energy in general.
The world simply doesn't have enough affordable energy and resources to support 9 billion people, so it will never happen.
We've been on the Peak Oil plateau for the past several years, and we might continue for several more (to the year 2020) but after that comes the long and irreversible descent and unavoidable contraction of industrial society -- along with the unsustainable population it currently supports.
World population might reach a peak of about 7.5 billion people by 2030, then gradually slide back down below 7 billion by mid-century, at which point the decrease will be gathering speed as is shoots past the 5 billion mark by the year 2100 on its way down to an eventually sustainable carrying capacity of close to 2 billion by the year 2200.
This assumes that humanity can manage industrial decline in a controlled manner, which, considering how incredibly stupid we've been so far in gobbling energy and resources as fast as possible and blowing them on the most frivolous things, seems too optimistic. A more likely scenario is a rapid die-off due to starvation and disease shifting into high gear by 2050, so that we overshoot the low-end capacity and quickly plunge to about a billion people by 2100, then creep back up to about 1.5 billion by 2200.