Post Reproductive Health http://min.sagepub.com/
Future prospects for longevity George W Leeson Post Reprod Health 2014 20: 11 DOI: 10.1177/1754045314521551 The online version of this article can be found at: http://min.sagepub.com/content/20/1/11
Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
The British Menopause Society
Additional services and information for Post Reproductive Health can be found at: Email Alerts: http://min.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://min.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
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Review article
Future prospects for longevity George W Leeson
Post Reproductive Health, formerly Menopause International 2014, Vol. 20(1) 11–15 ! The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1754045314521551 prh.sagepub.com
Abstract It is acknowledged that the world is ageing at both the individual and population level. Life expectancies at birth have increased for males and females in the more developed economies across the 20th century. The 21st century is expected to see this development continue with life expectancies moving towards 100 years. This paper looks at the evidence for future increases in life expectancy and for the longest-lived to live even longer.
Keywords Ageing, centenarians, life expectancy, longevity
Introduction
Living longer
The world is ageing both at an individual and population level1,2 – and population ageing, which was once regarded as an issue for the developed economies of Europe and North America is truly a global phenomenon now reaching Latin America,3 the only notable region of exception being sub-Saharan Africa, which remains relatively young in demographic terms.4 At an individual level, life expectancies at birth have increased at the global level from 47 years in the mid-20th century to around 70 years today, and are expected to rise to 76 years by the mid-21st century and to 82 years by the end of the century. At the population level, the proportion of the world’s population aged 60 years and over has increased from 8% in the mid-20th century to 11%, and by 2050, it is expected to reach 21%, equating to more than 2 billion people. The end of the century will see almost 30% and 3 billion of the world’s population aged 60 years and over.4 In Europe, the 20th century ageing of population continues in the 21st century albeit at a slower rate, but with other elements, namely supercentenarians – those aged 100 years and over. England & Wales has become demographically mature5 with more people in mid-2011 aged 60 years and over (12.2 million) than aged under 15 years (9.9 million).6 The scale of ageing – both at the population and individual level – across the globe is thus by any measure truly dramatic and must surely be regarded as one of the success stories of humankind as more and more people live long, relatively healthy lives.
Life expectancies have been increasing quite dramatically since the turn of the 20th century7,8, but what has been particularly striking is the improvement in survival at older ages9,10 and there seems to be an increasing body of evidence that lives will continue to be extended for some time to come,3,11–17 but the subreplacement fertility norm into which many European countries seem to have settled is equally impressive – and equally challenging.18 As pointed out by Oeppen and Vaupel,19 female life expectancy at birth in the longest lived country at any time has increased year on year since 1840 at a rate of approximately 3 months per year – likewise males, albeit at a slower rate and lower level. What then are the future prospects for longevity? Experts have been continually sceptical, moving from a belief in limits to life-span to a belief in a limit to life expectancy. As early as 1928, this limit was predicted to be 64.75 years for both males and females.20 That forecast at the time of writing had – unbeknown to Dublin – already been surpassed in New Zealand. Later, Olshansky et al.21 put the limit at 35 years at age 50, but again this was exceeded just 6 years later by Japanese females.
Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Corresponding author: George W Leeson, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
12
Post Reproductive Health 20(1)
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the development in life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at age 65 years, respectively. The time taken for 10-year incremental increases in life expectancy at birth for both males and females since 1841 decreased quite dramatically initially but has since been more prolonged. So, the first 10-year increase for females took around 60 years and for males almost 70 years; the second took just over 20 years for females and just over 25 years for males; the third increase took around 26 years for females but more than 40 years for males; and while the fourth 10-year increase for
females took almost 60 years, it had still not been achieved for males by 2010. This reflects in part what Bongaarts11 termed the transition from juvenile to senescent mortality. The difference in male and female life expectancy at birth also exhibits an interesting development. Until around the 1870s, it remains at approximately 2 years after which it increased to approximately 3 years until the early 1900s at which time it increased to 4 years, and it was not until post Second World War that the next 1-year increase occurred, then proceeding to a 6-year difference in the 1960s. In the 1990s, the life expectancies began to converge, the difference falling
90 80 70 60 50
Female
40
Male
30 20 0
1841 1847 1853 1859 1865 1871 1877 1883 1889 1895 1901 1907 1913 1919 1925 1931 1937 1943 1949 1955 1961 1967 1973 1979 1985 1991 1997 2003 2009
10
Figure 1. Life expectancy at birth for males and females in England and Wales, 1841–2010. Source: data from the Human Mortality database.
25 20 15 Female 10
Male
5 0
Figure 2. Life expectancy at age 65 for males and females in England and Wales, 1841–2010. Source: data from the Human Mortality database.
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
Leeson
13 1.2 1 0.8 0.6
l(0,15)
0.4
l(60,75)
2010-11
2005-09
2000-04
1995-99
1990-94
1985-89
1975-79
1980-84
1970-74
1965-69
1960-64
1955-59
1950-54
1045-49
1940-44
1935-39
1930-34
1925-29
0
1922-24
0.2
Figure 3. Survival from birth to age 15 and from age 60 to age 75 years, UK, 1922–2011. Source: own calculations from the Human Mortality Database.
to approximately 5 years in the 1990s and to approximately 4 years by the 2010s. Thus, the first 50 years of the 20th century saw life expectancies at birth for both males and females increase by 20 years (a 43% increase for males and a 42% increase for females). In absolute terms, as we shall see, it will take 100 years from 1950 to 2050 to increase these life expectancies at birth by another 20 years (now only a 29% increase for males and a 23% increase for females). This is driven by a shift in mortality declines from the young to older age groups, reflecting the demographic reversal of the earlier conviction that mortality at older ages is intractable10,22 – see Figure 3. Indeed, declines in mortality among the extreme aged have been striking10 with the age-specific mortality rate for females in their 80s and 90s in England and Wales declining from about 180 per 1000 population in 1950 to less than 90 by 1995. Improvements albeit more modest have also occurred in that second half of the 20th century for males.23–25 It is interesting to note that while life expectancy at birth has increased steadily, albeit modestly initially, life expectancy at age 65 was slow in beginning to increase. Indeed from 1841 to the early 20th century, it remained more or less the same, and the difference between male and female life expectancy at age 65 was less than 1 year. The turn of the 20th century saw life expectancy at age 65 begin to increase steadily – particularly for females, and with this came a divergence of male and female life expectancies, mirroring the development to some extent for life expectancies at birth. The post Second World War era saw the continued increase in life expectancy at age 65 for females, while
males began to slow, thereby increasing the male– female difference to around 4 years from the mid1960s to the mid-1980s. By 2010, males had caught up somewhat and had reduced the difference to approximately 2.5 years. One hundred and seventy years had seen late-life life expectancy increase by just over 7 years for males and almost 9 years for females – an incredible achievement given the entrenchment of the belief that late-life mortality was a constant of life.
The future The societies of this future with highly mature populations will be faced with a multitude of challenges arising from these demographic developments, but of course it should be remembered that it is highly unlikely that only our demographies will change. Societies will also change – and will need to change in response to this maturing demography. It is all too often the case that this population ageing is equated with more and more frail, dependent and resource-draining older people who are unable to contribute and simply live on and on draining the health service, the pension funds and the family. To think that is to think in a one-dimensional mode where only numbers are changing. This is not to say that the changing numbers are of no consequence. On the contrary, the numbers are a warning in themselves that we need to change our societies and – perhaps more importantly – our mind-set. Mortality at advanced ages even is being delayed and although the future will always remain difficult to predict, there does seem to be an increasing body of evidence that around the world lives will continue to be extended for some time to come.3,11–17,19,26
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
14
Post Reproductive Health 20(1) 120 100 80
Male 0
60
Female 0 Male 65
40
Female 65
2100
2090
2095
2080
2085
2070
2075
2065
2060
2055
2050
2045
2035
2040
2025
2030
2020
2015
0
2010
20
Figure 4. Life expectancy at birth and at age 65 years for males and females respectively in England & Wales from 2010 to 2100. Source: Office for National Statistics.
In the UK, for example, the number of centenarians has increased from around 2500 in 1980 to almost 13,000 in 2010,27 and by the middle of the century the number is expected to be close to 300,000,28 and in Japan, the number of centenarians increased from 154 in 1963 to almost 18,000 in 200214 with the United Nations forecasting almost 690,000 centenarians in Japan by 2050.4 In the mid-1800s in Sweden, about three people on average every year would reach the age of 100 years (and these would mostly be women) but 150 years later around 750 would be turning 100 years. It is estimated that around a third of babies born in the UK in 2012 will survive to celebrate their 100th birthday and between 5 and 15% of males and between 9 and 20% of females aged 65 years in 2012 can expect to reach 100 years of age (These ranges refer to the differences between the low life expectancy variant, principal projection and high life expectancy variant.).29 So more people are living longer, and the longest lived are living longer too. The survival curve will continue to become more and more rectangular in shape – and it may also be stretched along the age axis as a result of extending maximum life span. This is supported by estimates from the Office of National Statistics for England & Wales.12,26 From the 1960s to the late 1990s in England & Wales, the highest verified age at death has ranged from 109 to 115 years. If future death rates fall in line with official projections, the highest ages being reached in the 2080s will be 116 to 123 years, and these will be from the baby-boom cohort of around 1966.12
What then of the future? Figure 4 illustrates the predicted development in life expectancy at birth and at age 65 years for males and females respectively in England & Wales from 2010 to 2100. By the turn of the next century, life expectancies at birth are predicted to be 93 years for males and 95.6 years for females in England and Wales, while at age 65 years, life expectancies are expected to be 29.9 years for males and 31.1 years for females. This may be an underestimate, however. If the 150year-old trend of an increase in life expectancy at birth of 2.5 years per decade were to continue, it would mean that life expectancy at birth in England & Wales would be around 102.5 years by the year 2100. Conflict of interest None declared
Funding This research is part of an on-going research programme ‘Demographic Forecasting’ at the Institute and is funded by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.
References 1. Lee R. The demographic transition: three centuries of fundamental change. J Econ Persp 2003; 17: 167–190. 2. Leeson GW. Demography, politics and policy in Europe. In: Ludlow P (ed.) Setting EU priorities 2009. The European strategy forum. Portugal: Ponte de Lima, 2009, pp.102–124. 3. Leeson GW. Prepared or not, Latin America faces the challenge of aging. Curr History: J Contemp World Aff 2011; 110: 75–80.
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
Leeson
15
4. United Nations. World population prospects: 2012 revision. New York: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2013. 5. Harper S. Mature societies: planning for our future selves. Daedalus 2006; 135: 20–31. 6. Office for National Statistics. Annual mid-year population estimates for England & Wales, Statistical Bulletin, 2012. 7. Fries JF. Aging, natural death and the compression of morbidity. N Engl J Med 1980; 303: 130–135. 8. Leeson GW. Demographic ageing in Denmark in the 20th century. Eugen Soc Bull 1982; 14: 46–52. 9. Leeson GW. Ældres dødelighed 1960–1980 (The mortality of older people in Denmark, 1960-80). Ugeskr Læger 1981; 143: 2324–2327. 10. Vaupel J. Demographic analysis of aging and longevity. Am Econ Rev 1998; 88: 242–247. 11. Bongaarts J. How long will we live? Population Dev Rev 2006; 32: 605–628. 12. Thatcher R. The demography of centenarians in England and Wales. Population trends. Vol. 96. London: Office for National Statistics, 1999. 13. Olshansky J, Carnes BA and Desesquelles A. Prospects for human longevity. Science 2001; 291: 1491–1492. 14. Robine J-M, Saito Y and Jagger C. The emergence of extremely old people: the case of Japan. Exp Gerontol 2003; 38: 735–739. 15. Wilmoth JR and Robine J-M. The world trend in maximum life span. Population Dev Rev 2003; 29: 239–257. 16. Christensen K, Doblhammer G and Vaupel J. Ageing populations: the challenges ahead. Lancet 2009; 374: 1196–1208.
17. Vaupel J. Biodemography of human ageing. Nature 2010; 464536–542. 18. Goldstein J, Lutz W and Testa MR. The emergence of sub-replacement family size ideals in Europe. Population Res Policy Rev 2003; 22: 479–496. 19. Oeppen J and Vaupel J. Broken limits to life expectancy. Sci Policy Forum: Demogr 2002; 296: 1029–1031. 20. Dublin LI. Health and wealth. New York Harper, 1928. 21. Olshansky J, Carnes BA and Cassel C. In search of Methusela: estimating the upper limits to human longevity. Science 1990; 50: 634–640. 22. Wilmoth JR. In search of limits: what do demographic trends suggest about the future of human longevity. In: Wachter KW and Finch CE (eds) Between Zeus and the Salmon. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997, pp.38–64. 23. Kannisto V. Development of oldest-old mortality, 1950– 1990. Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1994. 24. Kannisto V. The advancing frontier of survival: life tables for old age. Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1996. 25. Kannisto V, et al. Reductions in mortality at advanced ages. Population Dev Rev 1994; 20: 793–810. 26. Thatcher R. The demography of centenarians in England and Wales. Population: An Eng Sect 2001; 13: 139–156. 27. Office for National Statistics. Estimates of centenarians in the UK, 2010. Statistical Bulletin, 2011. 28. Evans J. Number of future centenarians by age group. London: Department for Work and Pensions, 2011. 29. Office for National Statistics. What are the chances of surviving to age 100? London: Office for National Statistics, 2012.
How To Cite Leeson GW. Future prospects for longevity. Post Reproductive Health 2014; 20(1): 11–15.
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
Future prospects for longevity George W Leeson Post Reprod Health 2014 20: 11 DOI: 10.1177/1754045314521551 The online version of this article can be found at: http://min.sagepub.com/content/20/1/11
Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
The British Menopause Society
Additional services and information for Post Reproductive Health can be found at: Email Alerts: http://min.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://min.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
>> Version of Record - Mar 13, 2014 What is This?
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
Review article
Future prospects for longevity George W Leeson
Post Reproductive Health, formerly Menopause International 2014, Vol. 20(1) 11–15 ! The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1754045314521551 prh.sagepub.com
Abstract It is acknowledged that the world is ageing at both the individual and population level. Life expectancies at birth have increased for males and females in the more developed economies across the 20th century. The 21st century is expected to see this development continue with life expectancies moving towards 100 years. This paper looks at the evidence for future increases in life expectancy and for the longest-lived to live even longer.
Keywords Ageing, centenarians, life expectancy, longevity
Introduction
Living longer
The world is ageing both at an individual and population level1,2 – and population ageing, which was once regarded as an issue for the developed economies of Europe and North America is truly a global phenomenon now reaching Latin America,3 the only notable region of exception being sub-Saharan Africa, which remains relatively young in demographic terms.4 At an individual level, life expectancies at birth have increased at the global level from 47 years in the mid-20th century to around 70 years today, and are expected to rise to 76 years by the mid-21st century and to 82 years by the end of the century. At the population level, the proportion of the world’s population aged 60 years and over has increased from 8% in the mid-20th century to 11%, and by 2050, it is expected to reach 21%, equating to more than 2 billion people. The end of the century will see almost 30% and 3 billion of the world’s population aged 60 years and over.4 In Europe, the 20th century ageing of population continues in the 21st century albeit at a slower rate, but with other elements, namely supercentenarians – those aged 100 years and over. England & Wales has become demographically mature5 with more people in mid-2011 aged 60 years and over (12.2 million) than aged under 15 years (9.9 million).6 The scale of ageing – both at the population and individual level – across the globe is thus by any measure truly dramatic and must surely be regarded as one of the success stories of humankind as more and more people live long, relatively healthy lives.
Life expectancies have been increasing quite dramatically since the turn of the 20th century7,8, but what has been particularly striking is the improvement in survival at older ages9,10 and there seems to be an increasing body of evidence that lives will continue to be extended for some time to come,3,11–17 but the subreplacement fertility norm into which many European countries seem to have settled is equally impressive – and equally challenging.18 As pointed out by Oeppen and Vaupel,19 female life expectancy at birth in the longest lived country at any time has increased year on year since 1840 at a rate of approximately 3 months per year – likewise males, albeit at a slower rate and lower level. What then are the future prospects for longevity? Experts have been continually sceptical, moving from a belief in limits to life-span to a belief in a limit to life expectancy. As early as 1928, this limit was predicted to be 64.75 years for both males and females.20 That forecast at the time of writing had – unbeknown to Dublin – already been surpassed in New Zealand. Later, Olshansky et al.21 put the limit at 35 years at age 50, but again this was exceeded just 6 years later by Japanese females.
Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Corresponding author: George W Leeson, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
12
Post Reproductive Health 20(1)
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the development in life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at age 65 years, respectively. The time taken for 10-year incremental increases in life expectancy at birth for both males and females since 1841 decreased quite dramatically initially but has since been more prolonged. So, the first 10-year increase for females took around 60 years and for males almost 70 years; the second took just over 20 years for females and just over 25 years for males; the third increase took around 26 years for females but more than 40 years for males; and while the fourth 10-year increase for
females took almost 60 years, it had still not been achieved for males by 2010. This reflects in part what Bongaarts11 termed the transition from juvenile to senescent mortality. The difference in male and female life expectancy at birth also exhibits an interesting development. Until around the 1870s, it remains at approximately 2 years after which it increased to approximately 3 years until the early 1900s at which time it increased to 4 years, and it was not until post Second World War that the next 1-year increase occurred, then proceeding to a 6-year difference in the 1960s. In the 1990s, the life expectancies began to converge, the difference falling
90 80 70 60 50
Female
40
Male
30 20 0
1841 1847 1853 1859 1865 1871 1877 1883 1889 1895 1901 1907 1913 1919 1925 1931 1937 1943 1949 1955 1961 1967 1973 1979 1985 1991 1997 2003 2009
10
Figure 1. Life expectancy at birth for males and females in England and Wales, 1841–2010. Source: data from the Human Mortality database.
25 20 15 Female 10
Male
5 0
Figure 2. Life expectancy at age 65 for males and females in England and Wales, 1841–2010. Source: data from the Human Mortality database.
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
Leeson
13 1.2 1 0.8 0.6
l(0,15)
0.4
l(60,75)
2010-11
2005-09
2000-04
1995-99
1990-94
1985-89
1975-79
1980-84
1970-74
1965-69
1960-64
1955-59
1950-54
1045-49
1940-44
1935-39
1930-34
1925-29
0
1922-24
0.2
Figure 3. Survival from birth to age 15 and from age 60 to age 75 years, UK, 1922–2011. Source: own calculations from the Human Mortality Database.
to approximately 5 years in the 1990s and to approximately 4 years by the 2010s. Thus, the first 50 years of the 20th century saw life expectancies at birth for both males and females increase by 20 years (a 43% increase for males and a 42% increase for females). In absolute terms, as we shall see, it will take 100 years from 1950 to 2050 to increase these life expectancies at birth by another 20 years (now only a 29% increase for males and a 23% increase for females). This is driven by a shift in mortality declines from the young to older age groups, reflecting the demographic reversal of the earlier conviction that mortality at older ages is intractable10,22 – see Figure 3. Indeed, declines in mortality among the extreme aged have been striking10 with the age-specific mortality rate for females in their 80s and 90s in England and Wales declining from about 180 per 1000 population in 1950 to less than 90 by 1995. Improvements albeit more modest have also occurred in that second half of the 20th century for males.23–25 It is interesting to note that while life expectancy at birth has increased steadily, albeit modestly initially, life expectancy at age 65 was slow in beginning to increase. Indeed from 1841 to the early 20th century, it remained more or less the same, and the difference between male and female life expectancy at age 65 was less than 1 year. The turn of the 20th century saw life expectancy at age 65 begin to increase steadily – particularly for females, and with this came a divergence of male and female life expectancies, mirroring the development to some extent for life expectancies at birth. The post Second World War era saw the continued increase in life expectancy at age 65 for females, while
males began to slow, thereby increasing the male– female difference to around 4 years from the mid1960s to the mid-1980s. By 2010, males had caught up somewhat and had reduced the difference to approximately 2.5 years. One hundred and seventy years had seen late-life life expectancy increase by just over 7 years for males and almost 9 years for females – an incredible achievement given the entrenchment of the belief that late-life mortality was a constant of life.
The future The societies of this future with highly mature populations will be faced with a multitude of challenges arising from these demographic developments, but of course it should be remembered that it is highly unlikely that only our demographies will change. Societies will also change – and will need to change in response to this maturing demography. It is all too often the case that this population ageing is equated with more and more frail, dependent and resource-draining older people who are unable to contribute and simply live on and on draining the health service, the pension funds and the family. To think that is to think in a one-dimensional mode where only numbers are changing. This is not to say that the changing numbers are of no consequence. On the contrary, the numbers are a warning in themselves that we need to change our societies and – perhaps more importantly – our mind-set. Mortality at advanced ages even is being delayed and although the future will always remain difficult to predict, there does seem to be an increasing body of evidence that around the world lives will continue to be extended for some time to come.3,11–17,19,26
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
14
Post Reproductive Health 20(1) 120 100 80
Male 0
60
Female 0 Male 65
40
Female 65
2100
2090
2095
2080
2085
2070
2075
2065
2060
2055
2050
2045
2035
2040
2025
2030
2020
2015
0
2010
20
Figure 4. Life expectancy at birth and at age 65 years for males and females respectively in England & Wales from 2010 to 2100. Source: Office for National Statistics.
In the UK, for example, the number of centenarians has increased from around 2500 in 1980 to almost 13,000 in 2010,27 and by the middle of the century the number is expected to be close to 300,000,28 and in Japan, the number of centenarians increased from 154 in 1963 to almost 18,000 in 200214 with the United Nations forecasting almost 690,000 centenarians in Japan by 2050.4 In the mid-1800s in Sweden, about three people on average every year would reach the age of 100 years (and these would mostly be women) but 150 years later around 750 would be turning 100 years. It is estimated that around a third of babies born in the UK in 2012 will survive to celebrate their 100th birthday and between 5 and 15% of males and between 9 and 20% of females aged 65 years in 2012 can expect to reach 100 years of age (These ranges refer to the differences between the low life expectancy variant, principal projection and high life expectancy variant.).29 So more people are living longer, and the longest lived are living longer too. The survival curve will continue to become more and more rectangular in shape – and it may also be stretched along the age axis as a result of extending maximum life span. This is supported by estimates from the Office of National Statistics for England & Wales.12,26 From the 1960s to the late 1990s in England & Wales, the highest verified age at death has ranged from 109 to 115 years. If future death rates fall in line with official projections, the highest ages being reached in the 2080s will be 116 to 123 years, and these will be from the baby-boom cohort of around 1966.12
What then of the future? Figure 4 illustrates the predicted development in life expectancy at birth and at age 65 years for males and females respectively in England & Wales from 2010 to 2100. By the turn of the next century, life expectancies at birth are predicted to be 93 years for males and 95.6 years for females in England and Wales, while at age 65 years, life expectancies are expected to be 29.9 years for males and 31.1 years for females. This may be an underestimate, however. If the 150year-old trend of an increase in life expectancy at birth of 2.5 years per decade were to continue, it would mean that life expectancy at birth in England & Wales would be around 102.5 years by the year 2100. Conflict of interest None declared
Funding This research is part of an on-going research programme ‘Demographic Forecasting’ at the Institute and is funded by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.
References 1. Lee R. The demographic transition: three centuries of fundamental change. J Econ Persp 2003; 17: 167–190. 2. Leeson GW. Demography, politics and policy in Europe. In: Ludlow P (ed.) Setting EU priorities 2009. The European strategy forum. Portugal: Ponte de Lima, 2009, pp.102–124. 3. Leeson GW. Prepared or not, Latin America faces the challenge of aging. Curr History: J Contemp World Aff 2011; 110: 75–80.
Downloaded from min.sagepub.com at UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich on June 10, 2014
Leeson
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4. United Nations. World population prospects: 2012 revision. New York: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2013. 5. Harper S. Mature societies: planning for our future selves. Daedalus 2006; 135: 20–31. 6. Office for National Statistics. Annual mid-year population estimates for England & Wales, Statistical Bulletin, 2012. 7. Fries JF. Aging, natural death and the compression of morbidity. N Engl J Med 1980; 303: 130–135. 8. Leeson GW. Demographic ageing in Denmark in the 20th century. Eugen Soc Bull 1982; 14: 46–52. 9. Leeson GW. Ældres dødelighed 1960–1980 (The mortality of older people in Denmark, 1960-80). Ugeskr Læger 1981; 143: 2324–2327. 10. Vaupel J. Demographic analysis of aging and longevity. Am Econ Rev 1998; 88: 242–247. 11. Bongaarts J. How long will we live? Population Dev Rev 2006; 32: 605–628. 12. Thatcher R. The demography of centenarians in England and Wales. Population trends. Vol. 96. London: Office for National Statistics, 1999. 13. Olshansky J, Carnes BA and Desesquelles A. Prospects for human longevity. Science 2001; 291: 1491–1492. 14. Robine J-M, Saito Y and Jagger C. The emergence of extremely old people: the case of Japan. Exp Gerontol 2003; 38: 735–739. 15. Wilmoth JR and Robine J-M. The world trend in maximum life span. Population Dev Rev 2003; 29: 239–257. 16. Christensen K, Doblhammer G and Vaupel J. Ageing populations: the challenges ahead. Lancet 2009; 374: 1196–1208.
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How To Cite Leeson GW. Future prospects for longevity. Post Reproductive Health 2014; 20(1): 11–15.
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