Ageing – Older Women

By the mid-twentieth century, for the first time in history, almost everyone in Britain could expect to live out a full lifespan from birth to old age. This was due, above all, to the rapid decline in death rates among infants and young children and, to a lesser extent, to falling death rates in middle age. Over time it became normal to expect to grow old and more people were living to later ages than ever before. This is clear from Table 7.1. However, this table, like all statistical tables, should be read with care. In everyday discourse it is often asserted that in 'the past' most people lived only into middle age, to their thirties or forties. So it appears, at first glance, from the table. But what it shows is only life expectancy at birth. Infant mortality was at very high levels in the Table 7.1 Expectation of life at birth for generations bom 1841–1991, United Kingdom

Year of birth	Males	Females	Year of birth	Males	Females
1841	39	42	1921	61	68
1851	40	43	1931	66	72
1861	42	45	1941	69.6	75.4
1871	44	49	1951	72.7	78.3
1881	47	52	1961	73.6	79.1
1891	48	54	1971	74.6	79.7
1901	51	58	1981	75.5	80.4
1911	56	63	1991	76	80.8

Source: Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS), National Population Projections 1989 Based, series PP2, No. 17 (London: HMSO, 1991), Table 2, p. 5, from P.Johnson and J. Falkingham, Ageing and Economic Welfare (London, 1992), p. 23. nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century and deaths at very early ages pull down the average life expectancy of the whole birth cohort. At the beginning of the twentieth century, and before, those who survived the early years of life in fact had a good chance of living to old age.