USA Life Expectancy Hits New High
Claims about falling life expectancy are incorrect but population fears remain ungrounded
Yes, I’m back. It has been about seven weeks since I last posted. Between conferences, writing my cryonics/biostasis book, and other activities I haven’t found the time. That should change. I have several more essays ready to write including one on the nasty intellectual and spiritual disease called “ahumanism”, one looking at the declining success of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway compared to the market, one on dematerialization of the economy, one on effective accelerationism, and the next piece in the True Transhumanism series.
In the meantime, you can find my very first podcast production over on Biostasis Technologies’ Substack – an interview with Emil Kendziorra, the main man behind cryonics and biostasis progress in Europe and, soon, the USA. Also, I want to thank Max Borders for republishing my piece on communicating life extension effectively. Check out other-Max’s blog if you like smartly subversive ideas.
Many people like to paint the USA in a poor light. Natives as well as outsiders. It is easy to find things to criticize but that’s true of any country. It is true that the USA has a relatively high level of obesity and diabetes. Today’s medicine can only do so much even if it is the best in the world. When life expectancy declined in the USA in the previous decade and again during COVID, some people actually cheered. When I posted the first signs of a rebound, one commentator from Europe seemed doubtful and disappointed.
The decline in USA life expectancy during the previous decade, according to the United Nations newly released 2024 report, is less than previously reported. The decline in 2015-2017 was tiny. The drop in 2020-2021 was much larger. But this was followed by a major rise in 2022 and again in 2023. In fact, the number for 2023 (79.3) is a new record high. Here are the numbers and the graph from which I extracted them:
2000: 76.81
2005: 77.53
2010: 78.67
2011: 78.70
2012: 78.82
2013: 78.82
2014: 78.88
2015: 78.72 (-0.08)
2016: 78.69 (-0.03)
2017: 78.65 (-0.04)
2018: 78.80
2019: 78.92
2020: 77.01 (-1.91)
2021: 76.38 (- 0.63)
2022: 77.98 (+1.60)
2023: 79.3 (+ 1.32)
As I predicted, the reduction in life expectancy from COVID was short-lived. The rebound started in 2022 and has continued. In 2002 the USA’s life expectancy increased by 1.6 years. Gaining more than a year per year (as also happened in 2023) means we have reached longevity escape velocity! Well, not really. Over the 23 span from 2000 the gain was 3.11 years, or 0.135 years per year.
1970: 70.73
1980: 73.73
1990: 75.37
The 1970s and 1980s showed impressive gains in longevity: 3.0 years in the ‘70s and another 1.64 years in the ‘80s. Or 0.3 and 0.164 years per year. So, no LEV or “Methusalarity”, just a steady increase.
According to the UN numbers, North America (79.64, 79.3 for the USA) has a higher life expectancy than Europe (79.06). Presumably, this is due to Eastern Europe dragging down the average.
The USA hater and anti-humanists who want to see humans die out will be disappointed at the continuing progress.
Two major qualifications and caveats should be noted here.
First, if your interest in the numbers is to apply them to yourself and your family and friend, the average life expectancy for the entire country is not a great measure. If you are not obese, not diabetic, do not smoke, and take good care of your healthy, you are in a subgroup with a higher life expectancy.
Women tend to live longer than men.
Individuals with higher income and education levels tend to have a life expectancy that is 5-10 years longer.
If you are Asian American you may expect 85 years.
If you as Hispanic American you have an average of 81 years.
What is life expectancy?
Second, it is easy to misunderstand life expectancy. When the decline in life expectancy during COVID was in the news, it was period life expectancy that was being referred to. If we are using period data we are collecting it from groups of people at a given time. This is based on the assumption that the death rate for each age group is the same as for this year’s newborns. Period life expectancy therefore measures death rates in one specific year. This can vary dramatically – as during COVID but far more so a century ago during the flu epidemic – and is not a prediction of how people will live in reality.
By contrast, cohort measures of life expectancy relies on a group of people, a cohort, tracked over time. It tells us the average lifespan of those people. We do not know that precise number until the last person in the cohort dies.
In principle, period and cohort life expectancy could be identical. Looking back from the late nineteenth century, the two measures have diverged. Cohort life expectancy (actual average lifespan) is higher than period life expectancy. This is because the mortality rate has declined over time. Contrary to the period life expectancy assumption, people did not experience the current year’s mortality rates at each age in their lifetime.
Even before the 2024 release, the best estimates suggested that a boy born in 2022 will live about seven years and a girl six years longer than that widely reported life expectancy at birth.
Global life expectancy
Global life expectancy also recovered from the pandemic years and reached an all-time high of 73.17 years. That is up from 68.07 in 1950, a gain of 0.07 years/year. It was only 32.0 in 1900. The stunningly wonderful gain of41.17 years in that time comes to an impressive 0.335 years/year.
The improvement in global life expectancy has been steady apart from a sudden and large drop due to famine in Communist China.
If life expectancy has continued to rise what does that imply for global population?
Living longer, slowing global population growth
Over the decades that I have argued for extended longevity, the most common objection has been overpopulation. Funnily enough, this argument got going at exactly the time when global fertility peaked. The peak was 4.96 children per woman in 1968. The long-term decline in fertility – followed by slowing population growth – has continued relentlessly. Yet the overpopulation panic has continued unabated. It is only the last couple of years that more people are recognizing how outdated that concern is.
The fall in fertility has been so rapid and proceeded so far that it has swamped the effects of extended longevity. The United Nations provides the most-cited source. Its projections have tended to be higher than those of other sophisticated modelers such as the Wittgenstein Centre and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Even so, the UN has reduced its projected numbers several times.
In the UN’s 2019 report, global population in 2100 was projected (medium scenario) to be 10.4 billion and still growing. The 2022 revision put the peak at 10.4 billion in 2086. The 2024 revision puts the peak at 10.3 billion in 2084, going down to 10.35 billion in 2100. That is 550 million fewer than in 2019. The largest reductions in projected numbers are found in North America and Latin America.
By contrast, the IHME locates global peak population in 2061 at 9.73 billion and falling below 8 billion by 2100. If faster progress is made, population could be 9.32 billion by 2055.
As I pointed out in an earlier essay, the biggest source of uncertainty arises from fertility estimates for Africa. By the end of the century the uncertainty range is one billion (80% confidence interval). The UN and IMHE seem to agree on this.
What I find astounding in the acceleration in the fertility decline. Looking at the transition from 6+ to <3 children, we see an enormous difference between earlier and later countries undergoing the fertility transition. -- accelerating fall in fertility – in later countries it falls faster. For 6+ to <3 children: It took Britain 95 years (1815-1910) for this drop. It took China just 11 years (1967-1978) and 10 years in Iran (1986-1996).
Also quite surprising is the degree of change in the UN’s population projection for the USA. Just two years ago, the UN projected 394.04 million for 2100. In the 2024 report the number zoomed up to 421.28 million – a difference of more than 27 million.
The peaking and projected decline of population, both global and regional, concerns me. Innovation, investment, and a strong economy are easier in a growing world. Eternally growing bureaucracy, Green suppression of reliable energy sources, and a less adventurous and more risk-averse culture all threaten progress – including our ability to overcome the curse of aging. What, if anything, we can do about that is beyond the scope of this essay but you can find plenty of recent discussion of the topic elsewhere on Substack.
For more details of the UN’s 2024 report, see Our World In Data.
Here's another factor that makes international comparisons of life expectancy tricky and that may make the USA look worse than it should: In some European countries (Switzerland?) newborns under a certain weight (1 kg?) are automatically classified as a stillbirth and doctors do not attempt to save it. But in the US, doctors do try to save such early deliveries but only succeed about half the time. Stillbirths are not counted in life expectancy but infant mortality is counted. This would disadvantage the USA.
This is a helpful reminder that official statistics are not necessarily easily comparable between jurisdictions. (In this case countries but it could be states or cities.) Quite recently we saw differences in the way that countries count COVID deaths. Official stats are helpful but we should always ask questions about how they are defined and measured. It is tempting to reduce the complexity of reality to some apparently clear and objective numbers.
I don't know if this is true of most countries in Europe or just a few. More research definitely warranted. Any corrections to my comments (if backed by references) are welcome.
My thanks to my good (and most enduring!) friend, Quentin Langley, for raising this point which I had totally forgotten.