LeClaire Institute

Module 1 · Five Hundred Years of Life Expectancy

Life expectancy at birth, in England and in the world, from 1526 to today: why the early average was low, what lifted it, and what that rise does not say about the biology of aging. The figure is on the left and the lesson script on the right. Every value is rounded or approximate. Verify these figures against Wrigley & Schofield, the Human Mortality Database (HMD), Our World in Data (OWID) and the WHO before publishing.

Figures1234
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Figure 1

Five hundred years, on one chart

Life expectancy at birth, England and the world, from 1526 to today.

Verify these figures against Wrigley & Schofield, the Human Mortality Database (HMD), Our World in Data (OWID) and the WHO before publishing. Every value on this page is approximate or rounded.

03060901526160017001800190020002026Year. Lines stop at 2023. 2026 is the end of the axis, not a measurement.Life expectancy, yearsCrisisSlow gainsTakeoffMedicalreached 15: late 50s (summary)123456
England, life expectancy at birthWorld, dashed. Open circles are estimates, before 1950England, age 15 + e15, measured from 1841Before 1841, only a level: the late fifties, not a yearly seriesShaded eras: crisis, slow gains, takeoff, medical
  1. 1 · Crisis.About the 1550s to the 1680s: plague, the famine and influenza of 1557-59, and Little Ice Age harvest failure. The late-1550s crash is to about 22. England's last major plague was 1665-66. The 1680s dip, to about 31, was smallpox, fevers and bad harvests, not plague.
  2. 2 · Slow gains.The 1700s. Plague is gone, smallpox inoculation spreads, and the food supply is steadier. The line still lurches, including a dip to about 25 around 1728, but by 1800 it is near 40.
  3. 3 · Offset.1796 to the 1870s. Jenner's vaccine and the sanitation reforms of the 1850s, offset by crowded industrial cities. From about 1800 to about 1870 the line stays near 40, and a bad year such as 1849 is still in the high 30s.
  4. 4 · Takeoff.About 1870 to 1914. Germ theory, clean water, housing and nutrition, and falling infant deaths. From about 41 around 1870 to the low 50s by 1914.
  5. 5 · 1918.England falls from about 46 in 1917 to about 41 in 1918, war and influenza together. The drop of more than 10 years is the United States: about 51 in 1917 to about 39 in 1918, about 12 years.
  6. 6 · Medical.The 1940s to the 1960s and beyond. Antibiotics, mass vaccination and the welfare state. England moves from about 61 in 1940, through a wartime dip, to about 69 by 1950 and about 71 by 1960.
  7. After 1970.After 1970, further gains in rich countries come especially from fewer deaths from heart disease and stroke, and from less smoking. The world average does not fall in the HIV years; it rises from about 64 in 1990 to about 66 in 2000. In those same years Eswatini falls from about 61 to about 44, and Zimbabwe from about 61 in the mid-1980s to about 46 in 2000. Those are the life-expectancy falls; this chart does not separate HIV from other causes. COVID marks the world line, about 73 in 2019 to about 71 in 2021. The UK dip is about 81 to about 80 in 2020.
Sources for these rounded figures
  • wrigley-schofield-owid. OWID long-run compilation (Wikimedia copy of OWID dataset 1892 / Clio Infra, Zijdeman et al.), quinquennial dates 1543 to 1838, following the England parish-register reconstruction of Wrigley and Schofield, The Population History of England 1541-1871. That compilation files the series under United Kingdom. Not re-keyed from the printed Cambridge tables.
  • hmd-owid. Our World in Data life expectancy, England and Wales, 1841-1949, Human Mortality Database via OWID (CSV retrieved 2026-10-29).
  • un-owid. Our World in Data life expectancy, United Nations World Population Prospects via OWID (CSV retrieved 2026-10-29). On the England line from 1950 this is the United Kingdom, not a separate England-only series.
  • riley-owid. Riley (2005), Estimates of Regional and Global Life Expectancy, 1800-2001, as republished by Our World in Data. Global points before 1950. Estimates.
  • hmd-e15-owid. Our World in Data, Life expectancy at age 15, England and Wales, Human Mortality Database (CSV retrieved 2026-10-29).
  • un-e15-owid. Our World in Data, Life expectancy at age 15, United Kingdom, UN WPP (CSV retrieved 2026-10-29). Years after 2023 in that file are projections and are not used.
  • owid-child. Our World in Data long-run child mortality (Gapminder where it is the source; UN IGME, which includes the WHO, where the two overlap). CSV unit is deaths per 100 live births, multiplied by 10. Retrieved 2026-10-29.
  • nchs-1918. US National Center for Health Statistics / CDC historical life tables, both sexes: 50.9 in 1917 to 39.1 in 1918, a fall of 11.8 years.

Every plotted value is rounded. Life expectancy is the nearest whole year, halves away from zero. Child mortality is the nearest 10 deaths per 1,000 when the rate is 100 or above, otherwise the nearest 1. sourceValue keeps the published figure to 2 decimals (life expectancy) or 1 decimal (per 1,000). A rounded year is not an exact measurement.

England is the solid line: Wrigley and Schofield, via Our World in Data, for 1543 to 1838, then England and Wales from the Human Mortality Database to 1949, then the United Kingdom. The world is dashed, from about 1800 (Riley, then the UN). Open circles before 1950 are estimates. The olive line is age 15 plus e15. Shaded bands are the four eras. Flags are the six drivers, and the note under them is the epilogue.
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Figure 2

Deaths before age five

The childhood deaths that pulled the average down.

01002003004005001526160017001800190020002026Year. Lines stop at 2023. 2026 is the end of the axis, not a measurement.Deaths before age 5 per 1,000England, about a quarter to a third
United Kingdom, under-5 mortality, from 1841World, from 1800Open circles, before 1950, are estimatesEngland before 1841: a quarter to a third, not yearly points

Same rule as Figure 1. Verify these figures against Wrigley & Schofield, the Human Mortality Database (HMD), Our World in Data (OWID) and the WHO before publishing.

Deaths before a fifth birthday, per 1,000 live births. The United Kingdom from 1841, the world from 1800. The band on the left is the English range before a continuous series: about a quarter to a third. Open circles are estimates.
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Figure 3

Why the average was low

A hundred births, and the sentence to keep.

Filled: 25 of 100, a quarterRinged as well: 33 of 100, a thirdThose children die before age five.Reach 15: the late fifties.

In England, those early averages were low mainly because a quarter to a third of children died before age five, while anyone who reached 15 could usually expect to live into their late fifties.

The birth average mixes children who died young with adults who did not. From 1841, someone who had reached 15 had a measured expectation of about 59, while the birth line was still about 42.

When childhood deaths become rare, the birth line rises toward the age-15 line. By 2023 they are about 81 and about 82.

A schematic, not a life table. Twenty-five filled dots are a quarter. The ringed dots take it to a third. The sentence under the grid is the line to read word for word.
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Figure 4

From the literature

Population lifespan, then the biology of aging. Only what the reading-room pages say.

The charts above are about when populations died. The reading room, part of this course, has one-page reads of papers on the biology of aging. The lines below only say what those pages say.

Epigenetic clocks14 clocks and 174 diseasesIn 18,859 people the newer clocks predicted disease better than clocks trained only to guess age. Accuracy gains were often about 1 percent. The page does not show that changing a clock changes risk.Epigenetic clocksClocks followed for up to 24 yearsIn one Italian cohort, a clock that speeds up predicts death beyond the starting measurement. The page calls the study observational.Epigenetic clocksA multivitamin trialA daily multivitamin slightly slowed two of five clocks, by about 0.11 and about 0.21 years per year. Cocoa extract did not. The trial did not show a longer life.
Long-lived animalsBowhead whale DNA repairWhale cells repaired double-strand breaks more faithfully than human cells. The whale protein CIRBP extended life in fruit flies. The page says this was cells and flies, not a treatment for people.Long-lived animalsMyotis bat genomesLong life in these bats lines up with changes in cancer pathways. Cells of one long-lived species had an unusual response to DNA damage, in culture. The page does not show that those changes lengthen life.
Diet, in miceCaloric restriction and mutationsEating less slowed the build-up of DNA mutations across several mouse tissues. The page does not give the level of restriction, and it does not show the same result in people.
Links open the existing reading-room pages. Nothing is added beyond what those pages say.

Quiz

Tap a question to see the answer

1. What does period life expectancy at birth measure?

The average length of life if one year's death rates lasted a whole lifetime. It is not a prediction for one baby (Figure 1).

2. Why was England's life expectancy at birth in the thirties for so long?

Mainly because a quarter to a third of children died before age five (Figure 3).

3. In England, what could someone who reached 15 usually expect?

To live into their late fifties. From 1841 the measured line is about 59 (Figures 1 and 3).

4. What should you not blame for the English dip in the 1680s, and why?

Plague. England's last major plague was 1665 to 1666. That decade's dip, to about 31, was smallpox, fevers and bad harvests (Figure 1, flag 1).

5. Which country's 1918 drop was more than 10 years?

The United States, from about 51 in 1917 to about 39 in 1918, about 12 years. England fell from about 46 to about 41 (Figure 1, flag 5).

6. Why did the English line barely rise between about 1800 and 1870?

Jenner's vaccine and the sanitation reforms of the 1850s were offset by crowded industrial cities. The line stays near 40 (Figure 1, flag 3).

7. Did the world average fall in the years of HIV?

No. It rose from about 64 in 1990 to about 66 in 2000. In those years Eswatini fell from about 61 to about 44 and Zimbabwe from about 61 to about 46. The chart records the falls and does not separate causes (Figure 1, epilogue).

8. What do the reading-room pages on clocks and caloric restriction not show?

They do not show that a methylation clock, or eating less, produced the rise in population life expectancy. The clock findings are associations, and the diet finding is in mice (Figure 4).