Estimates of Regional and Global Life Expectancy, 1800–2001
Abstract
Historians and demographers have gone to considerable trouble to reconstruct life expectancy in the past in individual countries. This overview collects information from a large body of that work and links estimates for historical populations to those provided by the United Nations, the World Bank, and other sources for 1950–2001. The result is a picture of regional and global life expectancy at birth for selected years from 1800 to 2001. The bibliography of more than 700 sources is published separately on the web.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
As recently as 150 years ago, the average life expectancy in the United States of America was just 45 years.
“Even as recently as 150years ago, the average life expectancy in the United States of America was just 45years [38].”
From Stoicism and death acceptance: integrating Stoic philosophy in cognitive behaviour therapy for death anxiety (2022) · cites this paper as [38]
Cites
Church, J. A. (2001) · Journal of Government Information · doi:10.1016/s1352-0237(01)00307-0 · Cited by 9,208 · see citing works
Broken Limits to Life Expectancy
Oeppen, J., & Vaupel, J. W. (2002) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1069675 · Cited by 2,819 · see citing works
The world economy: historical statistics
(2004) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.41-4407 · Cited by 1,443 · see citing works
Maddison, A. (2003) · Development Centre studies · doi:10.1787/9789264104143-en · Cited by 1,194 · see citing works
The Decline of Fertility in Europe
C., J. C., Coale, A. J., & WATKINS, S. C. (1987) · Population · doi:10.2307/1533093 · Cited by 1,090 · see citing works
English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580–1837
Wrigley, E. A., Davies, R. S., Oeppen, J. E., & Schofield, R. S. (1997) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511660344 · Cited by 881 · see citing works
United Nations Development Programme (2000) · Human development report · doi:10.18356/b1ed65e9-en · Cited by 450 · see citing works
A Concise History of World Population
Levine, D. I., & Livi‐Bacci, M. (1994) · The Journal of Interdisciplinary History · doi:10.2307/206347 · Cited by 388 · see citing works
The population history of England: 1541–1871: a reconstruction
Kearns, G. (1990) · Journal of Historical Geography · doi:10.1016/0305-7488(90)90086-q · Cited by 216 · see citing works
Essai sur l'évolution du nombre des hommes
Biraben, J.-N., & Biraben, J.-N. (1979) · Population · doi:10.2307/1531855 · Cited by 203 · see citing works
English population history from family reconstitution, 1580-1837
(1998) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.35-4095 · Cited by 151 · see citing works
A Concise History of World Population
Woods, R. J. (1993) · Population Studies · doi:10.1080/0032472031000147146 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Cross-national epidemiology of DSM-IV major depressive episode
Bromet, E., Andrade, L. H., Hwang, I., Sampson, N. A., Alonso, J., de Girolamo, G., de Graaf, R., Demyttenaere, K., Hu, C., Iwata, N., et al. (2011) · BMC Medicine · doi:10.1186/1741-7015-9-90 · Cited by 2,221 · see citing works
Collaborators, W. W. M. H. S., Stein, D. J., Lim, C. C. W., Roest, A. M., de Jonge, P., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Al-Hamzawi, A., Alonso, J., Benjet, C., Bromet, E. J., et al. (2017) · BMC Medicine · doi:10.1186/s12916-017-0889-2 · Cited by 520 · see citing works
Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century
Olshansky, S. J., Willcox, B. J., Demetrius, L., & Beltrán-Sánchez, H. (2024) · Nature Aging · doi:10.1038/s43587-024-00702-3 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
Song, W.-J., Sohn, K.-H., Kang, M.-G., Park, H.-K., Kim, M.-Y., Kim, S.-H., Lim, M. K., Choi, M.-H., Kim, K. W., Cho, S.-H., et al. (2015) · Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology · doi:10.1016/j.anai.2015.03.008 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Menzies, R. E., & Whittle, L. F. (2022) · Discover Psychology · doi:10.1007/s44202-022-00023-9 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“Even as recently as 150 years ago, the average life expectancy in the United States of America was just 45 years [38].”
Background
- Authors
- Riley, J. C.
- Affiliations
- Indiana University Bloomington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Riley, James C.
- ORCID
- Riley, James C.
- Venue
- Population and Development Review
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2005-09
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 537-543
- ISSN
- 0098-7921 (ISSN-L)
- 1728-4457
- OpenAlex
- W1963514368
- Cited by
- 306
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 75 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 5.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Population and Development Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Historical Economic and Social Studies
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Global Health Care Issues
- Keywords
- life expectancy, historical demography, life expectancy at birth, historical population estimates, mortality trends
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
