Life expectancy and length of life inequality in the long run

Abstract

This chapter describes trends in adult length of life and its distribution based on 15144 life tables derived from various sources that for some countries cover a period of over 200 years. Since 1800, life expectancy in the most developed countries has increased from around 55 to 81 years for men and from 57 to 87 for women, an increase of about 50%. Concurrently, inequality in length of life in the best-performing countries has been cut by over 2/3 for both men and for women. This decrease, however, is not independent of the change in average life expectancy, as the two are strongly connected. Our data show that, in spite of great improvements in average life expectancy and reductions in length of life inequality since 1800, at each level of life expectancy there is substantial variation in inequality of length of life between different countries.