(2005-12-02) Fogel Tech Evolution Life Expectancy

Nick Schulz interviews Robert Fogel on Life Expectancy, Body Height, Evolution, Urbanization, and Knowledge Growth. Life Expectancy appears to have increased pretty steadily from the early 18th century until maybe around 1820. And then it started cycling. We had actual decreases in life expectancy. Before we returned back to a path of increase in life expectancy, beginning in the late 19th century, and from then on it was a pretty steady pattern of increase... The average stature (Body Height) of adult males in Western Europe increased by close to a foot between 1864 and the present.

The life expectancy, if I can go back to 1700, was only about 35 years at birth. In 1900, 200 years later, it had increased by about 12 years -- it was in the neighborhood of 47 in Western European countries. And, today it's 77 or 78, so in a century we added 30 years to life expectancy, maybe a little bit more What were the primary drivers of that? Public health reform, cleaning up of the water supply (clean water), cleaning up of the milk supply. But if you said what was the single most important factor, it's technological change. Technological change made it possible to greatly increase the food supply and permit levels of nutrition that were not previously attainable. Secondly, it made it possible to have a safe water supply. We needed a more modern technology to be able to carry away waste water and provide safe water, both through filtering and chlorination. And, still another area was the development of vaccines, which made it possible to inoculate the very young against diseases. And with better nutrition, you greatly increase the physiology of human beings.