Poll: How long will you live?

[brewer12345]

Longevity calculators suggest 85 for me. Who knows. What I would really like to know is how many good years I will have, not just how many years. But if years from now you hear of the police being called because an elderly man was blowing squirrels out of the trees in his suburban backyard you can be sure I have succumbed to dementia.

DW's family has a history of extended longevity. We will be looking for ways to hedge that in about 20 years.

 

[eytonxav]

969 years.

But your already past 775 years, so your chances to break 1000 should be good

 

[Car-Guy]

Wow, what optimism. At this point it looks like more than 80% think they will beat the "US" average. I hope you all are right.

 

[unno2002]

Grandparents died early 80's. Parents died late 80's. Absent an accident, or that effects from some nasty exposure, I figure I'm in the middle.

 

[jon-nyc]

I'd be happy with three score and ten.

 

[W2R]

Wow, what optimism. At this point it looks like more than 80% think they will beat the "US" average. I hope you all are right.

Take a look at the homeless squatters wherever they congregate in your area. They gather under the interstate bridges in New Orleans, for example. Many, though not all homeless are severely alcoholic, not eating right, taking serious illegal drugs, exposed to terrible weather and diseases, and not getting good health care or caring about lifestyle choices. There, but for the grace of G** go I.

Meanwhile, most of us here are very concerned about what food we eat, our weight, our workouts, avoiding additives in our food, and our medical care, and so on. So are our spouses or SO's.

I suspect that these homeless, and those who are simply extremely poor and/or on public assistance, may be dragging down the US average lifespan. Honestly I can't imagine that our relatively wealthy ER Forum members wouldn't live longer than average.

Of course, luck plays a part in longevity, perhaps more than money. Still, money does have some effect I would think maybe.

 

[Live And Learn]

FIDO RIP tells me that I have a 95% chance of my portfolio lasting to age 86, so that's what I picked

There is a chance that I'll live to be 95 or 100, but since I may not be able to afford to live to that age I'm going to ignore that possibility !

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I figure about 80...although this calculator shows 87 with a 50% chance that I will live longer than 88!

How Long Will I Live? - Life Expectancy Calculator

 

[outdoorgirl02]

Calculator says 88. My guess is 85.

 

[NW-Bound]

Voted 85, both parents 'lived' to 92 & 96. I wouldn't like to have my last 5 years be like theirs...

In addition to contemplating how much longer I have to live, having seen old and sick people in hospitals and nursing homes I also wonder how much of my life will be spent bedridden and in diaper.

Alas, as I have no certain answer to the 1st question, I have even less to venture a guess on the 2nd. So, I don't want to think about these unanswerable questions too much.

 

[bmcgonig]

95. Moms side has terrific longevity. Mom is 96 1/2 and going strong living alone. Her mom dies at 96. Dad on the other hand died of heart attack at 65. But he smoked and didn't exercise and had high cholesterol. So planning on 95 since I think I'm genetically on my moms side. Would be very happy to wake up dead around 90 though.


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[eytonxav]

May be the better question is to what age do you expect to live a healthy and fully functional life

 

[Totoro]

Honestly I can't imagine that our relatively wealthy ER Forum members wouldn't live longer than average.

Also, File:Causes of death by age group (percent).png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And:
File:Causes of death by age group.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Everyone here survived childhood and the dangerous young drivers phase, and I think most aren't in a gang turf war or live in dangerous areas (gun deaths). That shifts the average a bit to the older side by a few years.

After that, if you don't smoke (less prevalent in more wealthy individuals) or worked in a coal mine you can almost remove the yellow line (COPD), again adds a bit. Same for lung cancer.

After that, it's either cardiovascular, cancer (all types) or alzheimers. Note that you end up in a pretty narrow range of life span by then.
https://gravityandlevity.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/usa-death_rates.png?w=600&h=216

If you look at death tables from the past few years (can't find the stats right now) you'll also see that the average life span kept increasing the last few decades, but the maximum lifespan not so much.

So 85 average for this forum actually seems more or less right, if not slightly pessimistic.

 

[2017ish]

Following along Totoro's path, note that the Society of Actuaries released an update of its mortality tables last month. At age 65, Males, on average, can expect 86.4. Females, 88.8. http://online.wsj.com/articles/rising-u-s-lifespans-spell-likely-pain-for-pension-funds-1414430683 (I wonder if the various life expectancy calculators have included these numbers yet? The one of the SoA site hasn't even done so as of this morning.)

You put the M/F numbers together and For upper-middle-class couples age 65 today, there’s a 43% chance that one or both will survive to at least age 95, according to the 2014 Tables of the Society of Actuaries. Life Expectancy: How to Prepare Financially for a Long Life

Finally, it is probably (on average) pertinent to this forum, the members of which seem to be pretty educated (by schooling and/or life) that both additional years of education and higher income add noticeably to life expectancy. This Brookings Report from April gets fairly deep into it using SSA data, which enabled them to attempt separating the impact of those two factors (particularly in the appended tables). http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/re...ty_retirement_benefits_bosworth_version_2.pdf

As the Brookings report concluded: Our analysis of the mortality experience of participants in the HRS shows a strong pattern of increasing differential mortality in which life expectancy is rising for those at the top of the distribution of individuals ranked by alternative measures of socio-economic status, but it is stagnate or declining for those at the bottom

 

[Totoro]

I love academia-speak:

Our analysis of the mortality experience of participants in the HRS shows a strong pattern of increasing differential mortality in which life expectancy is rising for those at the top of the distribution of individuals ranked by alternative measures of socio-economic status, but it is stagnate or declining for those at the bottom

Also known as: Rich people live longer.

 

[2017ish]

Totoro,

Yeah, your summation is pithier!

The thing that will likely never be 100% nailed down is which is causing which? (Probably goes both ways, if I had to make a guess. On average, health definitely assists in gaining wealth/education. And wealth/education helps maintain health and longevity.)

 

[Car-Guy]

May be the better question is to what age do you expect to live a healthy and fully functional life

Agree with that. Heck, doesn't even need to be fully functional. (Just reasonably)

An interesting tidbit of info I ran across recently said that according to the Office for National Statistic, they believe that 1/3 of the babes born in the UK in 2013 will live to be 100. I'm not sure why the UK was mentioned and not other countries.

 

[braumeister]

according to the Office for National Statistics, they believe that 1/3 of the babes born in the UK in 2013 will live to be 100. I'm not sure why the UK was mentioned and not other countries.

Because it's a UK government organization?

 

[Car-Guy]

Because it's a UK government organization?

You got it

 

[NW-Bound]

... according to the Office for National Statistic, they believe that 1/3 of the babes born in the UK in 2013 will live to be 100...

Oh, poor babies! They will have to work till 80, when they can retire. If they get off at 70, that's ER for them.

 

[seraphim]

Dad died at 72 from hypertension. I'm on meds for blood pressure since I was 33 - it's genetic. So I always assumed early 70s. But medicine is better than it was, and my much older brother is 73 now. So I'm keeping an eye on him. He's more like our mom, though, and she lived to 80...


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[Gumby]

Evidently, people really suck at predicting how long they'll live. You’ll probably live much longer than you think you will - The Washington Post

 

[Sunset]

I don't really know, no biological basis to go from, so I personally figure 80, but plan the finances to 95 for DW, and will be happy be around after 80