Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman, died in 1997 at the oldest documented age, 122.45 years. But measuring the maximum age achieved by a remarkable individual does not directly correspond to life expectancy, which is a measure of how long half of the population born at a specific time can expect to live, said other experts. Olshansky said the developed nations of the world have already enjoyed the most dramatic improvement in life expectancy in human history. An American female born in 1900 had a life expectancy of 48.9 years. By 1995, life expectancy for a newborn girl was 79.
Small gains continue And there continues to be small gains.
Death rates from 1985 to 1995 declined by 1.5 percent in France, 1.2 percent in Japan and 0.4 percent in the U.S., said Olshansky. Projecting these trends forward, he said, would give a combined male and female life expectancy of 85 years in France by 2033 and in Japan in 2035. Americans would not achieve a life expectancy of 85 until 2182, Olshansky said. The Social Security Administration has forecast that U.S. life expectancy at birth will rise to 79.3 years for males and 83.9 years for females by 2070. But to achieve this, said Olshansky, would require a faster decline in death rates for all ages.