Recommendations, including a significant revision of mortality projections. In 2010 the Social Security Advisory Board appointed the Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods (TPAM) to assess the assumptions and methods used in the Trustees Report. The 2011 Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds (commonly known as the Trustees Report) projects life expectancy to reach 82.2 years in 2050, up from 77.7 in 2006. projection is the one used by the Social Security Administration. Most projections by researchers and government agencies fall between these extremes (Lee and Carter, 1992 Li and Lee, 2005 Tuljapurkar, Li, and Boe, 2000 Bongaarts, 2006). A very different opinion is held by optimists (Oeppen and Vaupel, 2002), who expect life expectancy at birth to continue to rise very rapidly, reaching over 100 years later this century. At one end of the spectrum of opinion are pessimists (Carnes, Olshansky, and Grahn, 1996 Olshansky et al., 2005), who believe that the most advanced countries are close to a biological limit to longevity. However, substantial disagreement exists among analysts about how rapidly future improvements will occur (Bongaarts, 2006 Wilmoth, 19). What are the implications of these conclusions for future trends in life expectancy? Mortality will likely continue to decline as further progress is made in medicine, biotechnology, public health, nutrition, access to medical services, incomes, and education. Obesity may account for a fifth to a third of the shortfall of life expectancy in the United States relative to the other countries studied. The damage caused by smoking was estimated to account for 78 percent of the gap in life expectancy for women and 41 percent of the gap for men between the United States and other high income countries in 2003. In its final report the committee reached several conclusions (National Research Council, 2011):Ī history of heavy smoking and current levels of obesity are playing a substantial role in the relatively poor longevity performance of the United States. In response to these concerns, the National Research Council (NRC) appointed a committee of experts in 2008 to investigate the reasons for this divergence between the United States and other high-income countries. The current situation is especially surprising given that the United States spends far more on health care than any other country. Why does the United States now rank so low in international life expectancy comparisons? This question has drawn the attention and concern of researchers and policy makers. The United States ranked at the top of this group of countries in 1950 but dropped to last place in 2006 (United Nations, 2011). In contrast, increases in life expectancy since 1950 have been due mostly to declines in adult mor-Ĭanada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom). Increases were most rapid in the first half of the twentieth century, when infectious diseases were brought under control, greatly improving survival of children. life expectancy at birth started improving in the eighteenth century, reaching 47.3 years in 1900, 68.4 years in 1950, and 78.2 in 2010 (Arias, 2011 Board of Trustees, Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, 2011). LIFE EXPECTANCY AND THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE CYCLE Later sections of the chapter will discuss population aging and why it matters. This chapter will examine these trends in the United States, starting with improvements in life expectancy and their implications for the individual life cycle. There are other demographic processes that affect aging, including migration, but they generally play a smaller role. With lower birth rates, younger generations are smaller relative to older generations, thus raising the average age of the population. A second and less obvious cause of population aging is a decline in the birth rate. Most obviously, people today are living longer than before. Population aging is largely caused by two demographic trends. This is a relatively new demographic phenomenon because for most of human history populations were young and lives were short.
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