Longevity and the New Map of Life with Laura Carstensen

The near doubling of life expectancy in the 20th century is among the greatest challenges and opportunities we face today. If we continue to live our lives according to the norms based on lives half as long as the ones we now enjoy, we will surely face a crisis. But we can, and need to, change education, work, and intergenerational compacts to use these added years to improve our quality of life.

Laura Carstensen, Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr. Professor in Public Policy, professor of psychology, and director, Stanford Center on Longevity

[KimJenson]

She does begin with infant mortality at 25% 100 years ago…contributing to life expectancy at 47.

[J.M.-nbgw]

This woman doesn't bother to mention that the reason the life expectancy was so low for much of the time was because many children died in infancy and many young adults died due to contagious diseases for which there was no cure. If people made it past those points their life expectancy was considerably longer