Good stats, Jérôme. Nice findings indeed.
Though, I won’t say the increase was that linear and regular from 1760 to 2000. It was close to stalling during a good part of 19th. And I’m quite amazed that the 1870-71 crisis (war+commune) was so costly.
What one can take from these stats is that during 1760-1940 timeline, life expectancy increased thanks to lower infant mortality, and since 1940 it increases thanks to better health of adults and elders.
Seeing the infant mortality, I can only guess that the Revolution was quite effective in improving the life of the mass of poor people in France.
The last graphic is quite telling (in the PDF file, which you didn’t include here). Apparently, infectious mortality dropped severly in mid-20th (logical, thanks to penicillin), but all the cadriovascular mortality dropped big time and constantly, too, since 1940 – which is a bit surprising to me. Also of interest is the totally flat level of cancer mortality. So, yes, it’s far more curable now, but it may also show that the scare over microwave ovens, TVs and the like giving cancer were a bit over-the-top.
As a side-note, quite often we see people outraged that proportionally, car accidents and suicides are the biggest causes of youth mortality. Well, once you’ve eliminated infant mortality and war, there’s no surprise that what were once minor causes in youngsters’ mortality now take the lead. Just like cancer being relatively minor compared to infections in 1900, but taking the lead now that infections barely kill anymore.
I of course fully agree with smoking. With at least as many women smokers than men, they’ll soon fall to a life expectancy similar to men’s, I fear.
Your mention of elder people having a quite good health and good life is spot on. This is my main point with health overall (and kind on topic with the whole Schiavo circus); imho, the goal isn’t to survive for as long as possible, because just survival is unworthy of a human being. The key is to actually live, which means having a decently independantly functioning body. I’d rather go Hunter Thompson’s way than end up like Terry Schiavo or even Ronald Reagan and other elder people with terribly debilitating end-life illness.
I’ve also seen some stats that tend to show that for the average Westerner, half the healthcare costs are due to the last year of life. The trouble isn’t that people living longer means they’ll cost more to Social Security; this can be fixed in a way or another. My biggest worry would be that there’ll be a runaway effect on the healthcare if everyone lives long and feels entitled to the best treatment possible just to live 10 or 8 more months, though they’re already 90+. But I may be completely wrong in my impression here, of course. Yet I still think that if Bush had any brains, this is where he should investigate and put some research (both in consequences of very long life expectancy and of better medicine), rather than try to scam people by privatising SS.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Mar 24 2005 15:54 utc | 3

My biggest worry would be that there’ll be a runaway effect on the healthcare if everyone lives long and feels entitled to the best treatment possible just to live 10 or 8 more months, though they’re already 90+.
My -unscientifical- personal evidence on this says that old people do not want these treatments. The are “done” on them. Most would probably like to have no pain and a some smiles and fall asleep. But the medical machinery is not prepared to make it this easy.
how will we support ourselves for the next 945 years? by writing of course, but then we need some more years to read…

Posted by: b | Mar 24 2005 18:25 utc | 5

The US life expectancy stats. obscure much.
The US has the highest expenditure in health care in the world per capita ; and the largest uninsured / untreated or poorly treated pop. pc in the developed world. It is, of course, a class society, and this goes some way to explaning the stats. (The poor are shunted aside, get desperately ill, are no treated in time, starve or don’t eat properly, die of debt and despair, etc.) Capitalism also sees to it that waste, inefficiency and corruption are endemic. Hospitals pay ridiculous / extavagant prices for anything at all, as they are locked in a cycle of business cronyism, paid for, ultimately, by…employers and patients, — all of them vulnerable. There is no ‘free market’ in that area, though many districts and even states have done their best: but the pharma companies (and many others on the gravy train, medical equipement, doctors, cleaners even) and local dignitaries (often men in white coats or closely affiliated, such as heads of labs, and investors: all this is always profitable…) win out.
One factor particularly is obscured: Homicide. It is not medical, but societal. Prison life contribues to those stats.

Posted by: Blackie | Mar 24 2005 20:05 utc | 7

An interesting side effect of the extension of longevity is that our life cycles seem to expand in order to fill our probable lifespan. It’s not that you grow up, mature, get productive & get old as always but then keep on living, but rather that it takes you longer to reach each stage. My father at my age was older than I am now. When I was my daughter’s age, I had seen, done and thought more than her, in spite of the greater facilities she how enjoys (which perhaps explains our nagging, “When I was your age…”); but when she went to Sweden she had trouble relating to girls her own age because they seemed too childish. This is visible even inside the same society: people whose life expectations are shorter tend to naturally evolve & mature faster. Not to mention what people in previous centuries were able to accomplish within a 30-50 year lifespan, having died at a point when we are just beginning. If Shakespeare or Da Vinci had lived twice as much, would they have been twice as productive? (No, I won’t mention Mozart, that’s unfair.) Somehow I doubt it; they would just have taken more time to come up with the goods. There may be a compensatory mechanism at work here.
The extension of life presently springs basically from the quality of medical assistance, which is not distributed evenly. But the time framework that defines start of productive life & retirement age is more or less fixed. Therefore, affluent people tend to enter productive life later and retire with better incomes in their prime – in fact, it’s quite usual for retired professionals to keep working for more 15-20 years. The poor, on the other hand, retire when they are drained and die soon afterwards. Therefore, it could be concluded that the poor are in fact paying for the leisure of the privileged. Nothing new here, of course, but perhaps there should be a mechanism to take in consideration the fact that people who earn more are expected to live longer and, therefore, should retire later.
By the way, if my theory of expanding development cycles is true, then perhaps when immortality comes (and it will come, although probably not so soon) we may have 100-year-old adolescents roaming the streets and listening to bicentennial Britneys… hmmm, I’m having second thoughts about that Immortality Plan, can I get a refund?

Posted by: pedro | Mar 25 2005 1:51 utc | 9