please empty your brain below
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I'm a 1950 baby, and I agree that it was a pretty good year to be born - particularly when I'm already ahead on the life expectancy stakes!
And I live in a country with deaths from covid not that far into double figures, the total increasing (when it does) by single figures each day, and I just have to (selfishly) count my blessings.
Betterbee | 08.05.20 - 8:17 a.m. | #
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I entered this world in 1945 so only remember the aftermath of the war years.
John | 08.05.20 - 8:28 a.m. | #
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Never forget that those born in the early 1930s still had to endure National Service and around 200 NS died in the Korean Wat and another 100 in Malaya. I have always thought that being sent to Korea, a place a lot of people in 1950 would never have heard of and then having to fight and possibly be killed, was the ultimate unfairness for National Servicemen. Survive WW2 as a child and then lose your life fighting in a Godforsaken place for what?
J. | 08.05.20 - 8:34 a.m. | #
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Of course wars are bad. But the 1930s were pretty awful for many. Children were better nourished in the UK during WW2, with its rationing, than prewar, with the depression.
Malcolm | 08.05.20 - 9:25 a.m. | #
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This article is rather pessimistic and maudlin. There has always been depression, repression and turbulence - it just that in the backdrop of history, it disappears into the noise. By all measure, people have been better off as time has gone on - life expectancy has increased, infant mortality has reduced, average wealth has increased, education levels have increased, opportunities have increased and so on, all across the globe.
The 1910s were bad, but remember that Spanish Flu from 1918 onwards likely killed far more people than WW1. Despite both of these issues, average life expectancy still increased.
The current crisis is bad in the moment, but will be a blip in history, barely remembered in 50 years. In terms of peoples lifetimes, you have never had it so good, and things will only get better. Anyone telling you otherwise has an agenda (sell more papers, get into power etc.) and should be ignored. History tells us that the future is going to better than the past.
Jimbo | 08.05.20 - 10:31 a.m. | #
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Perhaps the best measure is optimism, how much are you born into, and live through, my view is that the last major optimistic event was the fall of communism, but we've had a series of pessimistic events starting with 9/11, then the Iraq war, various mass terrorist killings, financial crash, austerity, the whole Brexit palava (more than cancelling out the optimism of the 2012 Olympics), climate change and now C-19 and another financial crash.
Still Anon | 08.05.20 - 10:36 a.m. | #
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The average life expectancy figures in the up to the early 1900s are skewed by all those kids dying before their 5th birthday. Assuming you reached 5 years old, your life expectancy wasn't that bad; sure it was less than today, the MEAN age of death might have been in the 40s, but the MEDIAN was in the early 60s, and the mode in the 70s. This means you'd have to consider a few more decades for those born early on in your analysis.
e.g. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMC3000019
Mark | 08.05.20 - 10:37 a.m. | #
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I was born in 1990, although my dad is rather old--completely fit and healthy, but is 80 years old-was evacuated from London during the war.
Of course my grandparents served during the war, but of course it wasn't really talked about-although talked about a bit with the last one, my great uncle (my dad's uncle), who died in 2013.
Although I'm sure my generation and my nephews and niece will be okay, all being well we won't to face up to fascism.
That said, I do get enough abuse for fighting the racist comments beneath You Tube videos, so goodness knows how much abuse somebody who isn't white and male gets.
Jonathan | 08.05.20 - 10:38 a.m. | #
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I marvel at the changes my 1900's gran witnessed, living well into the 1980's. Photo albums show she had a very good 1930's, and the way the country fared in the rocky road aspects of the 1970's seemed very retrograde to her. (This downward plunge was somewhat mitigated by being able to watch the horse racing and golf on colour tv).
Well said about working to make all our grey years green. Green seems to be a very apt thing to aim for to help do this.
NickW | 08.05.20 - 11:17 a.m. | #
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Regarding life expectancy: I had a distant cousin who was an actuary. He lived to an advanced age (I lost touch with him so am not sure exactly what.)
He used to walk everywhere in London, rather than take transport.
Bob L-S | 08.05.20 - 11:34 a.m. | #
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My Great grandfather was born in the 1870s and died at 30. His son, my grandfather was born in the 1900s and lived to 60. His son, my dad was born in 1931 and is almost 90!
Cornish Cockney | 08.05.20 - 1:03 p.m. | #
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I have a photo of my grand daughter (aged eight months) with her great great aunt at the latter's 100th bithhday last year.
My great great aunt Alice - the same relation to me, and almost the same age difference (102 years rather than 99 1/2) - died aged five of malnutrition in 1868 along with two of her sisters.
Knocked me for six when I worked that out.
Sarah | Homepage | 08.05.20 - 6:00 p.m. | #
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I expect the next 50 to 100 years will be increasingly dominated by climate change. How well we deal with that will determine whether our decades are green or red.
Andrew | 09.05.20 - 10:54 a.m. | #
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Is it correct to use life expectancy in this way?
The life expectancy at birth today isn’t how long on average a child born today will live. Obviously we don’t know that. It’s a synthetic average mixing up the mortality of people of all ages today. Not a single birth cohort.
So life expectancy at birth in 1930 is an average of everyone alive in 1930. Children born in 1930 would have lived much longerthan that on average.
Concerned | 13.05.20 - 8:29 a.m. | #
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