With the passing of investor Charlie Munger this week, at age 99, I was reminded of a few thoughts on longevity and living to 100 plus. This is a topic I covered a bit on this site. To start, it is a beautiful result to see one live to be a centenarian. And despite a handful of exceptions, it is a clear breakthrough of people who get up there [0.05% of the living population.] It’s also appears to be a very White tranche at that age berth. I could recall from memory a handful in the 97+ club: including Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Dick Van Dyke, and David Attenborough. But can you name someone from memory, who is that old and is a person of color?
There could be many statistical reasons for not being able to do so. It could be a bias in who has become celebrities to begin with, increased mortality rates of rising-personalities of color [sadly often before their low 40s], migration and career innovations, or simply small sample size at these apparent extremes.
But peeling back this analysis we see there is something more. The US government life tables for people born in the early 1920s, showed nearly uniform survival odds [eg 0.05%] for people born then. And in fact for the most part this has been somewhat of an underestimate for Whites -regardless of gender- over the past century. They are closer to 0.1%, fortunately despite coronavirus they are still climbing!
But on the flip-side it has been the reverse for people of color. They have disappointed by a nearly a 2:1 ratio! Clearly things have come into play over this century, which have harmed the chances of non-Whites to live out and enjoy their full life expectancy. And the actuarial tables were simply correct by luck in aggregate, but totally wrong in disaggregate. Both factors have come into play, and both factors need to be addressed.
Current life tables for those born a century later [so now in the early 2020s] instead recognize deep racial/ethnic longevity differences, particularly when combined with gender. For example, the odds of being a centenarian for those born today include 2% for Asian males, 1.7% for White females, and 1.4% for Black females, and 0.5% for White males.
These differences, including the nearly 5+ year life expectancy difference between Asian males and White males, are not statistically significant enough to predict your own life outcomes. They do however continue to point to both the landscape of where most people ultimately die, as well as reinforce how individual choices matter. Surround yourself by optimistic people, and equally important, focus on eliminating the bad vices that have stalked your well-being. You can be the breakthrough 1 in a 1000, rewriting God’s table.
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