How the Life Expectancy of Americans Changed Over the Last Century

Americans today live far longer than their great-grandparents did. The change is one of the biggest in human history, and it has reshaped how and when people die. This article explains the numbers and what they mean.

What was life expectancy in 1900?

About 47 years. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics says that in 1900, life expectancy at birth in the United States was only 47.3 years. Fifty years later, in 1950, it was 68.2. A CDC report on the year 2000 put it at nearly 77.

What is life expectancy, exactly?

It is the average number of years a newborn would live if death rates stayed the same throughout their life. It is not the age at which most people died. A life expectancy of 47 did not mean that people usually died at 47. It meant that many babies and children died, which pulled the average down. Those who survived childhood often lived much longer.

Why did life expectancy rise so fast?

Mostly because fewer children died. History.com reports that rapid gains in the early 20th century were driven primarily by saving the young. Communicable diseases killed many children, and there was little that medicine could do about it. What helped was clean water, better sanitation, and a growing public understanding of germs. As parents learned to protect children from disease, child mortality began falling significantly from about 1880 into the early 20th century. Life expectancy rose from 47.3 in 1900 to 59.7 in 1930. Later gains came from antibiotics, vaccines, and better care for heart disease and cancer. The infant mortality rate had fallen by about 75 percent between 1950 and 2000, a Kaiser Health News summary of a CDC report says.

What happened in 1918?

A sudden collapse. The CDC notes that life expectancy was volatile in the early 20th century, declining 13 times between 1902 and 1928. The largest drop was during the influenza pandemic of 1918, when life expectancy at birth fell from 50.9 years in 1917 to 39.1 in 1918, a decline of 11.8 years. As the pandemic faded, it bounced back by 15.6 years in 1919, to 54.7. See How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Overwhelmed American Funerals and Cemeteries.

Has it ever fallen since?

Rarely, and usually only for a year at a time. The CDC says that between 1924 and 2018, life expectancy fell two years in a row only once, in 1962 and 1963. It declined in 2015 and 2017 as well. More recently, deaths from COVID-19 and drug overdoses pulled it down. Life expectancy was 77.5 years in 2022 and 78.4 in 2023, and it reached a record 79.0 in 2024, according to the CDC.

What does this mean for how we live and die?

People now tend to die at older ages, and more often from chronic diseases than infections. Many deaths now follow a long illness, which can give families time for planning, caregiving, and goodbyes. It also changes what families need, such as help with long illnesses and with dementia. For the main causes today, see What Are the Leading Causes of Death in the United States?, and for age patterns, What Is the Most Common Age to Die in America?.