Americans Are Living Longer Than Ever Browse Topics Marriage, Family Pop. Projections Education Race, Ethnicity Income, Poverty Migration Foreign-Born Pop.
Life expectancy is a hypothetical measure.
It represents the average number of additional years that a person could expect to live if current mortality trends were to continue for the rest of that person's life. But death rates do not remain fixed over time. They have fallen steadily over the past century. Between 1900 and 1998, life expectancy in the United States increased from 51 to 80 for females and from 48 to 74 for males. Most of the improvements in life expectancy have resulted from reductions in infectious diseases among infants and children.