Still alive? How many?

[imoldernu]

A subject that seems interesting, but has very little coverage.
We talk about life expectancy, how many years left, but the question for me was... How many people who were born when I was born... are still alive?

Surprisingly, not much info available for this, without lots of extrapolation... So did you ever wonder how many of your age peers are still alive? And if your parents are still alive, what percent of those born when they were born, are still around?
A Chart below (2006) , but how about a guess before you look? In my case, looking at the 1991 address list from our retirement community, it looked as if: of people around my age that only about 20% were still around. In fact, I was surprised to see that about half of people in the 80 year old bracket are still alive. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_21.pdf

So, a few rough figures from the chart... percent who are still alive at this age:
45---95%
50---94%
55---91%
60---88%
65---83%
70---77%
75---67%
80---54%
85---37%
90---20%
95---7%
100--2%
The numbers are M/F averages... and of course from 2006, but that date should not change the results very much.
In my own case, less than half of the men born when I was are still around.
Explains why I go back to my home town newspaper to check the obituaries.

Just out of curiosity, I checked my college class from the Alumnus magazine, and found that about 70% of my '58 classmates are still alive. May speak to the question of wealth, heritage, health and education, but just a guess.

In any case, while this may not seem as meaningful as your calculated life expectancy, you may begin thinking about the real numbers rather than the estimates, when you get older. It looks like... of every three people my age today, one will be dead in the next 5 years, then it gets worse.

 

[GreenER]

Interesting. I hate to see how those numbers drop so precipitously after 85. My folks are both in that age group. We have two friends that have just lost parents in the 95-100 cohort.

 

[jon-nyc]

Interesting to think about on a rainy cold Monday.

 

[Big_Hitter]

This data is readily available from various sources


You should be able to find several different mortality tables at www.soa.org

 

[imoldernu]

This data is readily available from various sources


You should be able to find several different mortality tables at www.soa.org

Not several... thousands... enough info there to launch a new career.

 

[MBAustin]

Interesting! Would not have thought that more than 50% live past 80.

 

[Big_Hitter]

That's just one life table - I'm not sure which and it might be an old one.

 

[Big_Hitter]

Not several... thousands... enough info there to launch a new career.

and then there are exams to pass too

 

[Andre1969]

Interesting. I hate to see how those numbers drop so precipitously after 85. My folks are both in that age group. We have two friends that have just lost parents in the 95-100 cohort.

I noticed that, too. I still have 3 relatives in the 90-95 range. Grandmom (maternal) will be 91 in February, although she's now bouncing around between the emergency room and a rehabilitation center, so she doesn't have much quality of life. Her cousin just turned 90 in October. And I have a great Aunt who's 91, almost 92.

Oh, and my Granddad, on my Dad's side of the family, just turned 100 in October!

 

[jjquantz]

I noticed that, too. I still have 3 relatives in the 90-95 range. Grandmom (maternal) will be 91 in February, although she's now bouncing around between the emergency room and a rehabilitation center, so she doesn't have much quality of life. Her cousin just turned 90 in October. And I have a great Aunt who's 91, almost 92.

Oh, and my Granddad, on my Dad's side of the family, just turned 100 in October!

On the other hand...

My dad went at 62, my mom at 66, my brother at 40.

DW's dad at 78, her mom at 72, her aunt at about 40.

The disconnect between personal experience and group averages is just one of many reasons why it is so hard to really think about your own mortality in a calm, objective way.

 

[braumeister]

From a very cursory review of the obituary page in the local newspaper, I'm always struck by how many were in the 85-95 bracket when they died.

 

[Lisa99]

the other thing that I find interesting is looking at the ages of death in one's family tree.

I've been able to trace DH's father's line back to the 1300s and the number of men who lived past 80 was astounding!

His great, great grandfather died at 92 and his dad his still super healthy at 80. Because of all this info we've planned for his life span to be well past what the actuarial tables give for him.

 

[Big_Hitter]

remember those tables are based on millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions of life years of exposure, so individual experience may not match those expecations....

 

[robnplunder]

Interesting! Would not have thought that more than 50% live past 80.

To me, I would not have thought that nearly 1 out of 10 dies before reaching 55.

 

[Lakewood90712]

To me, I would not have thought that nearly 1 out of 10 dies before reaching 55.

Not too surprising to me. Infant mortality , dangerous activity of males when they start driving till age 25 , and a lot of cancers pop up about age 40 or so. Cardiac among high risk seems to start around 50.

 

[haha]

None of these things is stationary. For example, cardiac infarction became a prominent cause of death by the mid 20th century, and seems to have declined somewhat since then. Until WW2 tb caused many premature deaths, but the discovery of streptomycin and also later antibiotics rapidly cleaned out the TB sanitaria, and the incidence of early death, We all are aware of how much the death toll in childhood and later from various infectious disease has been greatly lessened by various antibiotics, and many of us are aware than in the last 20 years or so bacterial resistance to some of these substances has made anti-infective therapy much more difficult. Banting and Best discovered insulin in 1922, it must have been some times before preparations were made available on the market. Prior to this diabetes was a frequent killer, even though our modern conception of T2 diabetes was little known and likely pretty rare. It seems like every other person around the world today has this. So diseases wax and wane in the rankings of killers.

Ha

 

[robnplunder]

Er.org members being no exception to death, how many members you know are no longer with us? When a very active member stops posting, is it a sure sign that the member is seriously ill or passed away? It's morbid to think but death hits us all.

 

[Meadbh]

Er.org members being no exception to death, how many members you know are no longer with us? When a very active members stops posting, is it a sure sign that the member is seriously ill or passed away? It's morbid to think but death hits us all.

I wonder about that too. Problem is, we have no way of checking.

 

[Big_Hitter]

None of these things is stationary. Ha

Indeed - we are dying in more expensive ways. We seem to have cured the acute causes of death and are now mostly dying from the chronic causes.

 

[harley]

I have seen a number of active posters who have stopped posting, but afaik they are still with us. I am not aware of any who have died.


I remember a few years ago someone pointed me at a site that would somehow notify all your online friends when you passed away. I don't remember where it was, but it was an interesting idea.

 

[Lisa99]

I've just created a simple will for my FIL using WillMaker.

The application had 5 key documents to complete that are used as death nears. One of the docs was "Information for Caregivers and Spouses". The document had a series of questions on how you wanted you social media/blogs/other online 'friends' to be notified.

I had never thought of leaving those kinds of instructions before I saw that document but it made sense. 80-year old FIL kind of laughed when I was asking him about his online habits... all of his answers were NA.