A Brief History
On January 2, 2009, Maria de Jesus of Portugal died in her home at age 115. At the time of her death, she was the oldest living person in the world and the 20th oldest recorded person ever to live. Maria ate fish, but not meat, and never drank alcohol or smoked.
Digging Deeper
Every so often, you hear of a centenarian who drank and smoked every day of his or her life right up to the end, which was not the case with Maria. So what does the trick? Did Maria live so long due to her healthy diet and habits? Did she have good genetics? Or, was she just plain lucky? It was probably a combination of all of these things. What seems unfair is that some seemingly healthy people with healthy habits just drop dead at a young age from undiagnosed heart conditions or develop cancer or have the misfortune of being the victim of an accident, murder or even war. This is especially unjust when creeps such as Charles Manson live long lives despite having ingested large quantities of drugs and having engaged in other supposedly unhealthy activities.
Americans are well fed and have an incredible bounty of foods available to them. Despite all this food and additional vitamins and supplements they are taking, Americans, however, only rank 34th of the 193 or so countries in average life span, which might, in part, be due to the increase in weight as a result of all those food choices. Many Americans can be found repeating the mantra that “We have the best health care system in the world,” but their longevity (or lack thereof) seems to undermine that claim.
A few thousand years ago, humans could expect to live an average of only 26 years, but by 2010 the world average had risen to over 69 years. The average Japanese person can expect around 84 years of life, whereas those unfortunate enough to live Swaziland and in other African countries only have 50 years of life or less to look forward to, the AIDS epidemic having a lot to do with it. (Note: Statistics vary with source.)
So, what would happen if people lived much longer? Yes, it would be nice to live to see one’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up, but certainly retirement systems, Social Security and Medicare would go broke. Retirement ages and the age for benefits would have to rise in response to the increased life span, something that has not been done consistently. An aging population might therefore mean increased competition for jobs, with certain professionals such as teachers and professors not retiring, making it extremely difficult to break into those professions.
Furthermore, if the younger generations then wait until they are financially better off to reproduce, this could result in a decreased birthrate, which might result in there being more older citizens eligible to receive retirement and health benefits than there are younger citizens paying into the pots.
Increased longevity certainly creates a set of tricky problems, and with the constant advances in medicine and improvements in lifestyle (decreased smoking, healthier eating habits), these problems may need to be addressed in the near future. Question for students (and subscribers): How long do you think people should live for? Please feel free to share your ideas, opinions and fears on this topic in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Committee on the Long-Run Macro-Economic Effects of the Aging U.S. Population. Aging and the Macroeconomy: Long-Term Implications of an Older Population. National Academies Press, 2013.
Haerens, Margaret. The Aging Population (Opposing Viewpoints). Greenhaven Press, 2014.