Life expectancy typically refers to the average lifespan of a person at birth. It’s often calculated for specific subgroups of people, e.g., nationalities, sex, wealth, etc. Using a combination of recorded and archeological data it can even be estimated for historical periods.
Important Factors
Infant and child mortality are the leading contributors to lower life expectancies. Prior to modern medicine, large percentages of children died before reaching adulthood. Diseases, accidents, poor nutrition, and wars also took a heavy toll on children. Until the 19th century roughly half of newborns failed to reach adulthood. To be fair, those factors also claimed many adults. However, most deaths occurred before adulthood with the next largest number being after fifty.
Life Expectancies through the Time
As typical Stone Age humans, Pebbles and Bam-Bam from the Flintstones cartoon series could expect to live 20-30 years. By the Bronze and Iron Ages, things improved, but just a little bit. Roughly half of babies died before their first birthday. Records from ancient Greece suggest a life expectancy in the later 20s. Although, an Athenian who made it to 30 had a decent chance to reach 60.
While 500-1000 CE is often referred to as the dark ages, life expectancy in Europe improved slightly to 30-35. The renaissance may have improved the quality of European life, but it did little to enhance life expectancy, which remained in the early 30s. During the same time period the Wang Clan in China averaged 35 years and the pre-1492 Meso-American cultures approached 40 years. Some estimates place the average in Vedic India at ~50 years.
Breakthrough Years
While plagues, famines, and war occasionally drove the numbers down, they generally rebounded to their pre-catastrophe levels, but they didn’t advance. As late as 1800, the world average life expectancy remained at ~30 years. Spurred by the science and economic advances of the Industrial Revolution the next 200 years saw the first sustained improvement in human life expectancy. Improvements such as vaccinations, agricultural productivity, and many others led to a doubling or even tripling of life expectancies.
Which brings us to our featured map courtesy of Our World in Data and Wikipedia.
To be sure large differences still remain, but in general, a child born almost anywhere on the planet today can expect to live much longer than most of his or her ancestors.
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
Note to pay the bills: Life expectancy doesn’t enter into any of my books, but this site doesn’t pay for itself. The Warders, a secret group of hightly trained operatives, strives to protect the small kingdom of Eridan from the predations of its larger neighbors. Filled with magic and adventure, the series is a James Bond-like thriller set in a high fantasy world. Why not give take a look? You can find a summary of the six book series here or find links to purchase books here.
As an added BONUS, the first 2 ebooks in the series are available for FREE – zip, zilch, nil, zero dinero, $0 – thru 11 March 2023 as part of the SMASHWORDS Read an Ebook Week celebration.
Additionally, consider signing up for my FREE newsletter. It contains announcements about new books, early notification of sales, and opportunities to participate in the creative process, e.g., being a beta reader. I promise that it will not overwhelm your inbox – I’m thinking once a month or less depending on news.
If you have subscribed, but haven’t received a newsletter, please check your spam folder. Moving the newsletter to your inbox should fix the issue.