Overall average lifespan is a misleading statistic because it includes people who die young (infant mortality for example really brings it down). As you get older, the average lifespan for someone of your specific age increases.
It does, because we’re talking about the total lifespan instead of remaining lifespan. A person who is 120 may have a 10% chance of living another year; but a 50 year old probably has less than a 1% chance living 71 more years. Of course the 50 year old probably has more than a 99% chance of living another year. So the older you are, the older your expected total lifespan is, even if your expected remaining lifetime is shorter.
You’re absolutely right, stats are a very misunderstood subject. It’s difficult to contextualize stats like this when the population is so large. My measurement for when I got old was when I started to meet old friends and at some point in the conversation we begin talking about other friends who we both knew who’ve passed away since the last time we’ve talked.
I’m 42, overweight, and poor. I’m an elderly middle-aged person who’s maybe got 20-25 years to go.
Who are they?
My kids say:
Birth to 30 is young.
31-60 is middle aged.
Over 60 is old.
Over 90 is fucking old.
People are aging more slowly than they did in the past, better information about health now. Look up 55 year old celebrities. These are certainly middle aged people, they aren’t young, and most don’t look old either. That is how I would define middle age and it’s getting longer. You can’t get old at 40, you will be old too long.
73 seems pretty low. It’s 77,28 years in the US and 81,41 here in the Netherlands.
Still, it’s weird people call 50 middle aged when it’s more like 40.
73 years is the life expectancy of a men in the US. Females tend to get 5-6 years older than men.
Ethnicity, as well as economic resources also play a huge role.
Even your zip code is an indicator:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/life-expectancy/index.html
