I’m not so sure Americans do live all that much longer these days. I’ve been doing a lot of genealogy research into my family and I’m finding that the men were living into their mid 80s with a fair amount of regularity in the late 1700s.
A lot of the women seemed to die in their 40s and 50s but I attribute that with having 9 to 15 children.
It was the children that had the highest mortality rate. By my estimate, nearly 2 of every 5 children died before reaching their teens.
“I’ve been doing a lot of genealogy research into my family and I’m finding that the men were living into their mid 80s with a fair amount of regularity in the late 1700s.”
My genealogy research suggests the same. If you made it to age 20, you likely would live to 70 or more. In the 1700’s and 1800’s the records show many large families had 30% and higher child mortality rates.
I can count on my hands the number of people that died before 90 on both sides of my family in the last 150 years.
I know of 6 that have lived to be over 100.
I think they average life spans, and those kids dying so young skewed the actual life spans of most people....