How Long May We Live?
People today live longer lives than their predecessors. Namely, while the American Colonists had the majority of individuals never reaching the age of 25, today, Americans are known to reach the life span of 78.1 years, on average.
Therefore, we are all living longer as the years go by and our civilization advances in many respects. This all started with the development of the Industrial Era, when health services began to evolve seriously. Basically, life expectancy of a nation depends greatly on the health service it provides to its people. So, the more advanced a country is and the more available its medical services are to its people, the healthier the people will be and the longer they will live. This simple equation leads us to the life expectancy state of today, where people get to see parts of life their forefathers could not have imagined.
Human Life Expectancy
The very definition of human life expectancy as a term has ambivalent meaning. Firstly, it stands for an individual's life predictions, where we speculate upon the longevity of this person's existence. Secondly, on a more wider scale, human life expectancy is a term used for the average age a group of newborn people reach, compared to the previously traced mortality rates of the generations before them.
These rates are different among different societies and are influenced by many factors such as gender, health, social and geographic factors etc.
Simply, in countries where people have to pay for their health expenses, they live shorter lives since they often wait for their symptoms to become serious or, even, severe. On the other hand, people who live in Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and many other countries which take good care of the health of their people, live much longer lives than, for example, people in developing countries.
Moreover, in countries where people live less, mortality rates of infants are higher as well. Taking into consideration that this factor influences the whole calculation of human life expectancy in a country, the very calculations may sometimes lack precision since these factors are hard to track.
Clearly, wars, diseases, terrible living conditions, famine and other such negative factors contribute to the shortness of life expectancy in certain areas. Gender, climate, economic statuses and working conditions are very influential as well. Naturally, a business manager will live longer than a coal miner, in most of the cases. Also, factors like genetic disorders, mental illnesses, drug usage, alcohol and tobacco consumption are taken into consideration too.
Insurance companies benefit greatly from these life expectancy lists, since they have a greater insight into the future of their investments.
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