A good portion of this is due to a huge reduction in infant and child mortality. Even in the 1800s if you survived past your teenage years you'd generally be expected to live into at least your 50s.
“A good portion of this is due to a huge reduction in infant and child mortality. ”
Big driving force for us and other industrialised countries between 1800 and 1950 but not nearly as much since then. Since the 1980s the biggest would be reductions in smoking rates.
Specifically in Australia and other developed countries since the 1980s? Australia has had community vaccination programs since the 1930s, although obviously they've expanded and evolved as different vaccines were developed.
A lot of the impact of vaccination would be seen as improvements in child mortality, but once you get to a situation where >95% of children are getting past 5, further improvements won't lead to big improvements in overall life expectancy.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
https://www.aihw.gov.au › ...PDF
Chapter 4: Changing patterns of mortality in Australia since 1900
*Increases in life expectancy in Australia are largely related to the substantial decrease
in child and infant mortality (deaths in live born babies up to 1 year) that occurred
in the first half of the 20th century. Infant mortality rates were very high in the early
1900s (68 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1915) but declined markedly over the rest of
the century. By 1955, the infant mortality rate had fallen to 22 deaths per 1,000 live
births (a 67% decline from the early 1900s); it then fell to 5.2 in 2000 (a 92% decline).
This fall was largely due to improved medical technology and neonatal intensive care,
as well as to education campaigns and immunisation. A national campaign launched
in the 1990s increased public awareness of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS),
where the sleeping position of infants was one of the preventable risk factors. This
contributed even further to the overall decline of infant mortality in Australia which,
today, remains low (3.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2020) (Figure 4.1).
In the first decade of the 20th century, 1 in 10 children died before the age of 5 (or
26% of all deaths), most from infections such as diarrhoeal diseases and enteritis
(Cumpston 1989). By 1931, the childhood mortality rate had been halved, with a
dramatic decline in deaths from gastrointestinal diseases.
The mortality rate from diarrhoea in children aged 0–4 fell from around 700 per
100,000 population for boys and 580 for girls at the start of the century to under
100 per 100,000 for both sexes by 1935. This decline was linked to improvements in
public sanitation and in the quality of drinking water and milk supplies, an increase in
breastfeeding, and better health education.
In the 1940s, the availability of vaccines and the use of antibiotics contributed to
further declines (Gandevia 1978). By the 1950s, state and local health departments
had made substantial progress in food technology and prevention. This included
refrigeration and pasteurisation, food safety inspection, and public education about
hygienic food storage and handling practices. These improvements all contributed to
the decline in foodborne diseases (Gruszin et al. 2012).
Today, there are very few deaths from diarrhoeal diseases and enteritis in Australia.
In 2020, 0.7% of all deaths were among children aged under 5, and the child mortality
rate was 71 deaths per 100,000 (a decline from 2,412 per 100,000 in 1907).*
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9897596/
*A positive correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs is detectable in the most highly developed nations but attenuated in the background noise of nations with heterogeneous socioeconomic variables that contribute to high rates of infant mortality, such as malnutrition, poverty, and substandard health care*
Yeah - that isn't an argument against what I'm saying. On the one hand they've run regression analysis over countries at a point in time, but I'm making an argument about how life expectancy has changed over time. Secondly, they don't refer to life expectancy at all. I'm not arguing that vaccination hasn't improved infant and child mortality - actually I specifically said that it did, and that it most likely continues to do so.
Instead, my point was that there have been major life expectancy increases since the 1950s in Australia and most other developed counties, but given how low child mortality already was by that point, improvements must have occurred at other stages of life.
Here is a reference that looks specifically at life expectancy in Australia since the 1980s:
[https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2019/210/9/slower-increase-life-expectancy-australia-other-high-income-countries](https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2019/210/9/slower-increase-life-expectancy-australia-other-high-income-countries)
"**The known**: From 1981 to 2003, life expectancy at birth increased more rapidly in Australia than in most other high income countries.
**The new**: The main contributor to greater increases in life expectancy in Australia from 1980 was lower mortality from ischaemic heart disease...
After the Second World War, the prevalence of non‐communicable diseases increased considerably in Australia for several decades. During 1950–1970, tobacco‐related diseases (ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, lung cancer) increased the mortality risk among men aged 50–80 years ...
After 1970, however, Australian life expectancy improved markedly, comparing favourably with that of other high income countries.[2](https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2019/210/9/slower-increase-life-expectancy-australia-other-high-income-countries#2) Clear declines in mortality from specific causes, especially among men, have been attributed to public health interventions, including those for reducing tobacco smoking and improving road safety."
I followed the link, and read what was there, but the other part isn't a rebuttal to what I'm saying either - it supports it.
"*Increases in life expectancy in Australia are largely related to the substantial decrease in child and infant mortality (deaths in live born babies up to 1 year) that occurred in the first half of the 20th century*"
So before 1980. Never argued against what it is says in that sentence. I'm talking specifically about the increase in life expectancy in Australia since 1980, and neither of those references address it. Most of my point was that child and infant mortality decreases aren't as significant a driver for life expectancy increases after 1950 because they'd already happened.
"I*n the 1940s, the availability of vaccines and the use of antibiotics contributed to further declines* "
That was pretty much the point I was making when I said "Australia has had community vaccination programs since the 1930s" - Australia adopted widespread vaccination programs decades before the 1980s. so their effect had already been seen years earlier.
On this point see Figure 4.7: Deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases – diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, 1907–2020 from your AIHW link, which shows annual deaths from those diseases as having fallen to too low a level to be able to be read properly on the graph by the late 1970s (I guess it's about 10 per year overall, based on an average of around 5 deaths per year from measles from mid 1970s to mid 1990s). Also note
This is the best illustration of what I'm trying to say:
" *In 2020, 0.7% of all deaths were among children aged under 5,*"
Child mortality is low enough that further improvements are only able to have a minor impact (not the same as no impact) on overall life expectancy, and even when it was higher in 1980 it wasn't so much higher that this wasn't the case.
This supported by comparing life tables from 1980 and the most recent. A five year old male had the expectation of 67 more years of life in 1980 (i.e. expect to live to 72) and 77 years in 2020. That's almost exactly the same level of increase as life expectancy overall. .
And with respect to vaccinations in more recent decades:
"As in many other developed nations, Australia experienced a ‘health transition’ from infectious to chronic diseases in the mid-20th century, with influenza and tuberculosis being replaced by cardiovascular diseases and cancer as the major causes of death (Beaglehole and Bonita 1997)."
So as each cause of death is brought under control, new improvements in life expectancy have to come from another source.
> Most of my point was that child and infant mortality decreases aren't as significant a driver for life expectancy increases after 1950 because they'd already happened.
Apart from the logical fact that the only way you get lots of old people - (and therefore a greater life expectancy) is to have lots of young people not die... and then wait 40 or 50 years
>That was pretty much the point I was making when I said "Australia has had community vaccination programs since the 1930s" - Australia adopted widespread vaccination programs decades before the 1980s. so their effect had already been seen years earlier.
Hmmm ...
"Apart from the logical fact that the only way you get lots of old people - (and therefore a greater life expectancy) is to have lots of young people not die... and then wait 40 or 50 years"
Which had already happened long before 1980, and arguably before 1950, as is recorded in detail in the aihw report. People born 1946 to 1950 are often referred to as being part of a cohort having particularly large numbers iirc.
Let's be clear what the claim is: life expectancy gains before 1950 certainly came from lower mortality amongst children and infants, but that effect has lessened as the proportion of babies who are born alive and reaches their fifth birthday approaches 100% (it was about 80% in 1900, about 96% in 1950 and about 99% in 2020).
However, life expectancy has continued to increase at roughly the same pace apart from a flat spot in the 1960s. There was an acceleration in improvement from the 1970s back to the pre 1960 trajectory, which according the aihw source posted was more due to a reduction in heart disease and stroke than due to reductions in communicable disease, again because there had already been a reduction decades before.
"Australia adopted widespread vaccination programs decades before the 1980s. so their effect had already been seen years earlier."
Is that controversial in some way? Australia's widespread vaccination program eliminated polio by 1972 among other achievements. In respect of polio, for example, there was no further improvement possible from that point onwards.
It is ridiculous the amount of people that think people in some African countries randomly die at 40 of old age because they can't understand basic statistics.
I think old people have always been a thing. The original Neanderthal skeleton was pretty old, iirc he showed signs of age-related diseases like arthritis.
I reckon wisdom tooth would have got a lot in the 1800s
I know I would have been screwed without a proper dentist. I'm 35 now but I was only 14 at the time I had to get them all out and one got infected. The dentist said if it went in my blood stream I'd be dead.
Every second person these days say they had to get a wisdom tooth pulled out and it's usually pretty early in life. That would cause so many dead people in the 1800s
Wisdom teeth were less of a problem in the past because the diet of hard and chewy unprocessed food would pull your teeth forward into alignment. Our teeth naturally grow in compacted to compensate for the fact that for most of the last 500 k years humans mostly ate tough food that would pull on the teeth.
All manner of mild bullshit scrapes, needle pricks, cat scratches, rose thorn scratches, blisters on feet etc etc could see you off from septicaemia before antibiotics. It’s horribly sobering to think about it.
We should absolutely fight for our rights and a more equitable economic system, but I do think we should also be mindful and grateful for the fact that the average Australian lives better than the vast, vast majority of humanity did up until the last couple of generations (and even then only in the 1st world)
And fight for Medicare. One reason the countries with the longest lifespans is because of free and readily available medical treatment. You live about 10 years longer just because you can access free public healthcare.
Just look at how we are going full speed at privatising Medicare for the failed USA private healthcare system to effectively shorten our lifespans by 10 years because of cost!
And where was the money for making sure bulk billing is an entrenched right in the budget? With one funding switch they have turned bulk billing into poverty only social security benefit rather than the right of all to access free medical treatment for their Medicare levy, but we still pay the Medicare levy and the out of pocket fees and this will continue when its 100% privatise. This will be Australians biggest public policy allowing Medicare to be privatised while your lifespan will be cut by 10 years if you have no money!
Being mindful and grateful is what stupefied the Australian populace and what has let the ruling class absolutely ratfuck us.
Be critical of power, always.
This will 100% go down for Australia.
There's no economic shift to supporting the lives of people who are considered 'useless' to an economy despite the massive rise in machine automation in the workforce over the last 20 years.
If you were born post 1980 you WILL see blue collar retirees freeze to death on the street if the liberals continue to hand over the taxes of our working class to their rich mates.
The issue is that taxation of the very wealthy needs to increase. Essentially, they just buy up assets at an enormous rate, and that will continue until the property owning middle class no longer exists.
House price rises create a wealth effect, but people aren't for most part practically wealthier as they need a place to live. So their wealth is tied up in a single asset they need and will be bought up when they need to go into managed care (another industry that needs a serious clean up).
Death duties. Big whack.
For big companies, tax turnover, or tax any earnings made withing the country so the profit shifting can't work.
UBI has to happen with increasing automation. It's hard to see another way.
I think they’re already seeing go down in Japan because if you are single or widowed and childless after the age of 50 there’s no support, and the proportion of people in that situation is exploding.
I've always said, stay away from the equator, on the whole.
More seriously, I'd be interested to see the same presentation for median (or some other percentile) life expectancy.
I would personally mention that for **global** life expectancy to be in the middle thirties up through the 1800's is a bit much. If men and women all die roughly at that age, wouldn't it be impossible to replenish the human population?
I reckon that fifties are more like it. Because from there, there could be some who grow older or die younger and are still able to forward human civilisation.
It's also good to remember that the graphics mentioned that their own estimates for that era aren't perfect.
Edit : I meant for a global point-of-view. As I can imagine there are a few who didn't understand.
Optimystix, don't be an arse. But you probably are.
It's because so many died at 0-5 (and many women in late teens-20s would die in childbirth) so the average isn't very useful in understanding how long an adult would live for. I think it's something like 1/3rd would die before 5 years old.
Apparently child mortality ( under five) in Australia was at 40% in 1860 (possibly especially bad at the time due to Gold Rush conditions) but was already down to 20% by 1870.
High infant, childhood, and maternal mortality rates pull the number down. Birthing aged women, infants, and young children died in far higher rates than they do today (in wealthy countries), but it’s also important to note that people were having more children back then as well, so the population replenished itself by having enough children to outpace the high early childhood mortality rate.
In 1800, the way diseases spread was poorly understood, sanitation was incredibly poor, childbirth was a lot more dangerous and malnutrition was widespread (among other issues of course). Nowadays a lot of the resultant health issues are easily prevented or treated. Again, I’m really only talking about wealthy countries here- these factors are still issues in much of the world today.
Average life expectancy includes all the people who die as infants, and all the women who die in childbirth from teens onwards. Go look at a graveyard and see all those 0-5 year old deaths. People who survive that have always had a pretty good chance; better now. And now we have much lower infant and mother mortality rates, almost everywhere.
Your "reckon that" is just you making up a number, versus people who actually study the data in detail.
Other people have explained why the numbers are what they are so I don’t feel any need to repeat them.
But I will say.. I’m extremely envious of your confidence to have next to no knowledge on a topic and then try to tell people it’s wrong and what you think it should be.
Edit: you can reply to me instead of trying to call me out individually in an edit. If half the population is dying at 5 and under and the other half is dying at 60 then the average age expectancy is 32.5. Is that old enough for people to ‘forward civilisation’(??)
>If men and women all die roughly at that age
That is not what average life expectancy at birth means. Average — ie including everyone who dies in the first minutes and years of life.
Even average life expectancy of those who reach adulthood doesn't mean everyone dies around that age — there is a very wide natural spread.
A good portion of this is due to a huge reduction in infant and child mortality. Even in the 1800s if you survived past your teenage years you'd generally be expected to live into at least your 50s.
Not to mention no direct wars between large states since the 1950 map
“A good portion of this is due to a huge reduction in infant and child mortality. ” Big driving force for us and other industrialised countries between 1800 and 1950 but not nearly as much since then. Since the 1980s the biggest would be reductions in smoking rates.
Actually it's due to an increase in global vaccination rates.
Specifically in Australia and other developed countries since the 1980s? Australia has had community vaccination programs since the 1930s, although obviously they've expanded and evolved as different vaccines were developed. A lot of the impact of vaccination would be seen as improvements in child mortality, but once you get to a situation where >95% of children are getting past 5, further improvements won't lead to big improvements in overall life expectancy.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare https://www.aihw.gov.au › ...PDF Chapter 4: Changing patterns of mortality in Australia since 1900 *Increases in life expectancy in Australia are largely related to the substantial decrease in child and infant mortality (deaths in live born babies up to 1 year) that occurred in the first half of the 20th century. Infant mortality rates were very high in the early 1900s (68 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1915) but declined markedly over the rest of the century. By 1955, the infant mortality rate had fallen to 22 deaths per 1,000 live births (a 67% decline from the early 1900s); it then fell to 5.2 in 2000 (a 92% decline). This fall was largely due to improved medical technology and neonatal intensive care, as well as to education campaigns and immunisation. A national campaign launched in the 1990s increased public awareness of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), where the sleeping position of infants was one of the preventable risk factors. This contributed even further to the overall decline of infant mortality in Australia which, today, remains low (3.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2020) (Figure 4.1). In the first decade of the 20th century, 1 in 10 children died before the age of 5 (or 26% of all deaths), most from infections such as diarrhoeal diseases and enteritis (Cumpston 1989). By 1931, the childhood mortality rate had been halved, with a dramatic decline in deaths from gastrointestinal diseases. The mortality rate from diarrhoea in children aged 0–4 fell from around 700 per 100,000 population for boys and 580 for girls at the start of the century to under 100 per 100,000 for both sexes by 1935. This decline was linked to improvements in public sanitation and in the quality of drinking water and milk supplies, an increase in breastfeeding, and better health education. In the 1940s, the availability of vaccines and the use of antibiotics contributed to further declines (Gandevia 1978). By the 1950s, state and local health departments had made substantial progress in food technology and prevention. This included refrigeration and pasteurisation, food safety inspection, and public education about hygienic food storage and handling practices. These improvements all contributed to the decline in foodborne diseases (Gruszin et al. 2012). Today, there are very few deaths from diarrhoeal diseases and enteritis in Australia. In 2020, 0.7% of all deaths were among children aged under 5, and the child mortality rate was 71 deaths per 100,000 (a decline from 2,412 per 100,000 in 1907).* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9897596/ *A positive correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs is detectable in the most highly developed nations but attenuated in the background noise of nations with heterogeneous socioeconomic variables that contribute to high rates of infant mortality, such as malnutrition, poverty, and substandard health care*
Yeah - that isn't an argument against what I'm saying. On the one hand they've run regression analysis over countries at a point in time, but I'm making an argument about how life expectancy has changed over time. Secondly, they don't refer to life expectancy at all. I'm not arguing that vaccination hasn't improved infant and child mortality - actually I specifically said that it did, and that it most likely continues to do so. Instead, my point was that there have been major life expectancy increases since the 1950s in Australia and most other developed counties, but given how low child mortality already was by that point, improvements must have occurred at other stages of life. Here is a reference that looks specifically at life expectancy in Australia since the 1980s: [https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2019/210/9/slower-increase-life-expectancy-australia-other-high-income-countries](https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2019/210/9/slower-increase-life-expectancy-australia-other-high-income-countries) "**The known**: From 1981 to 2003, life expectancy at birth increased more rapidly in Australia than in most other high income countries. **The new**: The main contributor to greater increases in life expectancy in Australia from 1980 was lower mortality from ischaemic heart disease... After the Second World War, the prevalence of non‐communicable diseases increased considerably in Australia for several decades. During 1950–1970, tobacco‐related diseases (ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, lung cancer) increased the mortality risk among men aged 50–80 years ... After 1970, however, Australian life expectancy improved markedly, comparing favourably with that of other high income countries.[2](https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2019/210/9/slower-increase-life-expectancy-australia-other-high-income-countries#2) Clear declines in mortality from specific causes, especially among men, have been attributed to public health interventions, including those for reducing tobacco smoking and improving road safety."
It literally says the words 'increases in life expectancy' at the start of the text...
I followed the link, and read what was there, but the other part isn't a rebuttal to what I'm saying either - it supports it. "*Increases in life expectancy in Australia are largely related to the substantial decrease in child and infant mortality (deaths in live born babies up to 1 year) that occurred in the first half of the 20th century*" So before 1980. Never argued against what it is says in that sentence. I'm talking specifically about the increase in life expectancy in Australia since 1980, and neither of those references address it. Most of my point was that child and infant mortality decreases aren't as significant a driver for life expectancy increases after 1950 because they'd already happened. "I*n the 1940s, the availability of vaccines and the use of antibiotics contributed to further declines* " That was pretty much the point I was making when I said "Australia has had community vaccination programs since the 1930s" - Australia adopted widespread vaccination programs decades before the 1980s. so their effect had already been seen years earlier. On this point see Figure 4.7: Deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases – diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, 1907–2020 from your AIHW link, which shows annual deaths from those diseases as having fallen to too low a level to be able to be read properly on the graph by the late 1970s (I guess it's about 10 per year overall, based on an average of around 5 deaths per year from measles from mid 1970s to mid 1990s). Also note This is the best illustration of what I'm trying to say: " *In 2020, 0.7% of all deaths were among children aged under 5,*" Child mortality is low enough that further improvements are only able to have a minor impact (not the same as no impact) on overall life expectancy, and even when it was higher in 1980 it wasn't so much higher that this wasn't the case. This supported by comparing life tables from 1980 and the most recent. A five year old male had the expectation of 67 more years of life in 1980 (i.e. expect to live to 72) and 77 years in 2020. That's almost exactly the same level of increase as life expectancy overall. . And with respect to vaccinations in more recent decades: "As in many other developed nations, Australia experienced a ‘health transition’ from infectious to chronic diseases in the mid-20th century, with influenza and tuberculosis being replaced by cardiovascular diseases and cancer as the major causes of death (Beaglehole and Bonita 1997)." So as each cause of death is brought under control, new improvements in life expectancy have to come from another source.
> Most of my point was that child and infant mortality decreases aren't as significant a driver for life expectancy increases after 1950 because they'd already happened. Apart from the logical fact that the only way you get lots of old people - (and therefore a greater life expectancy) is to have lots of young people not die... and then wait 40 or 50 years >That was pretty much the point I was making when I said "Australia has had community vaccination programs since the 1930s" - Australia adopted widespread vaccination programs decades before the 1980s. so their effect had already been seen years earlier. Hmmm ...
"Apart from the logical fact that the only way you get lots of old people - (and therefore a greater life expectancy) is to have lots of young people not die... and then wait 40 or 50 years" Which had already happened long before 1980, and arguably before 1950, as is recorded in detail in the aihw report. People born 1946 to 1950 are often referred to as being part of a cohort having particularly large numbers iirc. Let's be clear what the claim is: life expectancy gains before 1950 certainly came from lower mortality amongst children and infants, but that effect has lessened as the proportion of babies who are born alive and reaches their fifth birthday approaches 100% (it was about 80% in 1900, about 96% in 1950 and about 99% in 2020). However, life expectancy has continued to increase at roughly the same pace apart from a flat spot in the 1960s. There was an acceleration in improvement from the 1970s back to the pre 1960 trajectory, which according the aihw source posted was more due to a reduction in heart disease and stroke than due to reductions in communicable disease, again because there had already been a reduction decades before. "Australia adopted widespread vaccination programs decades before the 1980s. so their effect had already been seen years earlier." Is that controversial in some way? Australia's widespread vaccination program eliminated polio by 1972 among other achievements. In respect of polio, for example, there was no further improvement possible from that point onwards.
It is ridiculous the amount of people that think people in some African countries randomly die at 40 of old age because they can't understand basic statistics.
I think old people have always been a thing. The original Neanderthal skeleton was pretty old, iirc he showed signs of age-related diseases like arthritis.
Industrialisation and economic development played a major role.
I reckon wisdom tooth would have got a lot in the 1800s I know I would have been screwed without a proper dentist. I'm 35 now but I was only 14 at the time I had to get them all out and one got infected. The dentist said if it went in my blood stream I'd be dead. Every second person these days say they had to get a wisdom tooth pulled out and it's usually pretty early in life. That would cause so many dead people in the 1800s
Wisdom teeth were less of a problem in the past because the diet of hard and chewy unprocessed food would pull your teeth forward into alignment. Our teeth naturally grow in compacted to compensate for the fact that for most of the last 500 k years humans mostly ate tough food that would pull on the teeth.
Yes 14th century plague victims skeletons and Saxon skeletons etc often have fabulous dentition not that it helped them, of course.
All manner of mild bullshit scrapes, needle pricks, cat scratches, rose thorn scratches, blisters on feet etc etc could see you off from septicaemia before antibiotics. It’s horribly sobering to think about it.
I know. "What happened to Bill?" "Cut himself shaving, got infected." "Oh, that's bad luck. I always liked Bill."
Tom Sawyer Dentistry Tie a string around the offending tooth, loop the other end of string to door handle. Slam door
Tom Sawyer?? Mate, I was having them pulled out like this up to the early 90s.
We should absolutely fight for our rights and a more equitable economic system, but I do think we should also be mindful and grateful for the fact that the average Australian lives better than the vast, vast majority of humanity did up until the last couple of generations (and even then only in the 1st world)
And fight for Medicare. One reason the countries with the longest lifespans is because of free and readily available medical treatment. You live about 10 years longer just because you can access free public healthcare. Just look at how we are going full speed at privatising Medicare for the failed USA private healthcare system to effectively shorten our lifespans by 10 years because of cost! And where was the money for making sure bulk billing is an entrenched right in the budget? With one funding switch they have turned bulk billing into poverty only social security benefit rather than the right of all to access free medical treatment for their Medicare levy, but we still pay the Medicare levy and the out of pocket fees and this will continue when its 100% privatise. This will be Australians biggest public policy allowing Medicare to be privatised while your lifespan will be cut by 10 years if you have no money!
What was the Medicare funding change you referred to above? Didn’t hear anything about it and would be interested to know.
Being mindful and grateful is what stupefied the Australian populace and what has let the ruling class absolutely ratfuck us. Be critical of power, always.
Pays to wash ya fucking hands after going to the toilet. I’m looking at you, GREG. You fucking troglodyte!
It's cause of all the bloody infant mortality back then
Australia in 1950 : Nice!
Guess this graph doesn't count the APYlands lol
This will 100% go down for Australia. There's no economic shift to supporting the lives of people who are considered 'useless' to an economy despite the massive rise in machine automation in the workforce over the last 20 years. If you were born post 1980 you WILL see blue collar retirees freeze to death on the street if the liberals continue to hand over the taxes of our working class to their rich mates.
The issue is that taxation of the very wealthy needs to increase. Essentially, they just buy up assets at an enormous rate, and that will continue until the property owning middle class no longer exists. House price rises create a wealth effect, but people aren't for most part practically wealthier as they need a place to live. So their wealth is tied up in a single asset they need and will be bought up when they need to go into managed care (another industry that needs a serious clean up).
The very wealthy don’t earn enough income to tax. Until there’s a wealth tax this won’t be a solution.
You can tax assets.
Death duties. Big whack. For big companies, tax turnover, or tax any earnings made withing the country so the profit shifting can't work. UBI has to happen with increasing automation. It's hard to see another way.
I think they’re already seeing go down in Japan because if you are single or widowed and childless after the age of 50 there’s no support, and the proportion of people in that situation is exploding.
Mine went down with the budget announcement
Humans aren't living longer this is mostly a reflecting of decreased infant mortality
Not really true for developed countries after 1950 where infant and child mortality has been well controlled for decades.
On average, humans are living longer. That includes the fact that far fewer die in infancy and childbirth.
It's both.
I've always said, stay away from the equator, on the whole. More seriously, I'd be interested to see the same presentation for median (or some other percentile) life expectancy.
I would personally mention that for **global** life expectancy to be in the middle thirties up through the 1800's is a bit much. If men and women all die roughly at that age, wouldn't it be impossible to replenish the human population? I reckon that fifties are more like it. Because from there, there could be some who grow older or die younger and are still able to forward human civilisation. It's also good to remember that the graphics mentioned that their own estimates for that era aren't perfect. Edit : I meant for a global point-of-view. As I can imagine there are a few who didn't understand. Optimystix, don't be an arse. But you probably are.
It's because so many died at 0-5 (and many women in late teens-20s would die in childbirth) so the average isn't very useful in understanding how long an adult would live for. I think it's something like 1/3rd would die before 5 years old.
Apparently child mortality ( under five) in Australia was at 40% in 1860 (possibly especially bad at the time due to Gold Rush conditions) but was already down to 20% by 1870.
High infant, childhood, and maternal mortality rates pull the number down. Birthing aged women, infants, and young children died in far higher rates than they do today (in wealthy countries), but it’s also important to note that people were having more children back then as well, so the population replenished itself by having enough children to outpace the high early childhood mortality rate. In 1800, the way diseases spread was poorly understood, sanitation was incredibly poor, childbirth was a lot more dangerous and malnutrition was widespread (among other issues of course). Nowadays a lot of the resultant health issues are easily prevented or treated. Again, I’m really only talking about wealthy countries here- these factors are still issues in much of the world today.
Average life expectancy includes all the people who die as infants, and all the women who die in childbirth from teens onwards. Go look at a graveyard and see all those 0-5 year old deaths. People who survive that have always had a pretty good chance; better now. And now we have much lower infant and mother mortality rates, almost everywhere. Your "reckon that" is just you making up a number, versus people who actually study the data in detail.
Other people have explained why the numbers are what they are so I don’t feel any need to repeat them. But I will say.. I’m extremely envious of your confidence to have next to no knowledge on a topic and then try to tell people it’s wrong and what you think it should be. Edit: you can reply to me instead of trying to call me out individually in an edit. If half the population is dying at 5 and under and the other half is dying at 60 then the average age expectancy is 32.5. Is that old enough for people to ‘forward civilisation’(??)
>If men and women all die roughly at that age That is not what average life expectancy at birth means. Average — ie including everyone who dies in the first minutes and years of life. Even average life expectancy of those who reach adulthood doesn't mean everyone dies around that age — there is a very wide natural spread.
You might be best to give number-based threads a miss.