sxan@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Life expectancy tended to be a lot lower, too. Once you lost your teeth, it was only matter of time. With no antibiotics, any injury that broke skin could be a death sentance, and over 30, 40 years, the odds stack up.
Childbirth was a pretty dangerous thing for women, too.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s a bit of a misconception. Life expectancy doesn’t measure the age at which most people die, but the average life expectancy.
That means, a bunch of different values contribute to the life expectancy and they do so to a wildly different degree.
Let’s say that without any adverse effects everyone dies of old age at around age 90.
Someone dieing of pulmonia at age 80 only scratches off 10 years, but someone dieing at age 0 due some childhood illness, bad hygiene, malnutrition or other complications scratches off 90 years.
In fact, by far the strongest contributor to the average life expectancy is child mortality. In 1800 in the USA, child mortality was at 46.2%.
If you discount child mortality, most people actually died aged 65-90.
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Aggravationstation@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Yea human lifespan hasn’t really changed over time but as you say infant mortality, pandemics, war and a complete lack of industrial safety for over a century have skewed the average over the years.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, a lot of people didn’t make it to the point of dieing of old age, but it wasn’t rare to see 80yo or even 90yo people.
People seem to think that a life expectancy of e.g. 45 years means that most people died at age 45, and that’s just plain wrong.