“Almost entirely driven by decreases in infant mortality” is exaggerated. Infant mortality was ~20% and childhood mortality (under age 5) was ~50%. Yes, a lot of the increase came from childhood mortality, but life expectancy increased at every age.
(Also, I don’t have time to dig into it now, but I am skeptical of the “15 hours” stat for hunter-gatherers.)
Note that life expectancy at 50 and the gap between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at 1 year basically didn’t budge from 1850 to 1900, whereas life expectancy at birth jumped by 10 years over the same time range. I do think there are at least two distinct things going on (probably all of which are related to increased wealth and improved medical care).
“Almost entirely driven by decreases in infant mortality” is exaggerated. Infant mortality was ~20% and childhood mortality (under age 5) was ~50%. Yes, a lot of the increase came from childhood mortality, but life expectancy increased at every age.
(Also, I don’t have time to dig into it now, but I am skeptical of the “15 hours” stat for hunter-gatherers.)
Note that life expectancy at 50 and the gap between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at 1 year basically didn’t budge from 1850 to 1900, whereas life expectancy at birth jumped by 10 years over the same time range. I do think there are at least two distinct things going on (probably all of which are related to increased wealth and improved medical care).