Angus deaton

Figure 2. 

Life Expectancy at Age 65, 1980–2015

Source: Human Mortality Database.

Years

1985

1990

1995

Year

2000

2005

2010

United 

States   

United Kingdom

France   

Canada 

Sweden  

Austria   

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

---

448

 

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2017

continuing mortality decline until very recently. There is a modest increase  

in mortality beginning in about 2011, but the overall change is still a 

reduction of about 15 percent. The declines are even greater for older 

groups. People age 65–74 have seen mortality reductions on the order of 

25 percent.

The fact that the mortality pattern for the elderly differs so much from 

that for the working-age population suggests several possible explanations. 

The first is a cohort interpretation: Some cohorts are experiencing worse 

mortality than their predecessors were, and this mortality change will per-

sist throughout their lifetime. I suspect this is not entirely the case, because 

the groups that would have experienced increased mortality from age 40 

to 55 are now at an older age, and their mortality rates have not increased 

anywhere near the extent we saw at younger ages. To be sure, we can see a 

bit of a reflection of the mortality increase in the older population (witness 

the mortality for the group age 60–64 since 2011), but there are clearly also 

other factors.