News Release

Americans expect to live a year longer than statistics suggest

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Ohio State University

9/27/99, COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Americans on average estimate they will live about one year longer than statistics of life expectancy suggest they will, a new study finds. Men and blacks are most optimistic about their lifespans -- men believe they will live about 3 years longer than official predictions and blacks expect to live about 6 years longer.

The group that statistics say should live the longest -- white females -- actually predicted they will live slightly less than official estimates.

"Americans seem to understand roughly how much time they probably have left," said John Mirowsky, author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University. "Men are slightly more optimistic, and black respondents quite a bit more optimistic."

The study appears in the October 1999 issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine. Mirowsky used data from the 1995 survey of Aging, Status and the Sense of Control, a national telephone poll of 2,592 adults that asked, among other questions, "to what age do you expect to live?" He compared respondents' answers to life expectancy figures published by the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1995.

The survey results showed that black and white women, and black males, expect to live to about 82 years on average and white males expect to live about a year less than that, to 81. However, census bureau statistics suggest that white women in this sample should expect to live to about age 83, black women and white men should expect to live about five years less, to age 78, and black males should expect to live about 6.5 years less than that, to age 71.5.

Another interesting finding was that younger people did not adjust their life expectancies upward to account for the fact that mortality rates continue to drop. Dropping mortality rates mean young people today should really expect to live longer than their parents and grandparents, Mirowsky said, but this was not reflected in their life expectancy estimates.

Although the findings suggest people have a generally good idea of their estimated lifespan, Mirowsky said he could not determine how people came up with their estimates. Specifically, he could find no explanation for the relative optimism of blacks and men about their life expectancies. One possibility he investigated was that these groups might report better health than others and so be more optimistic about their future life. But controlling for perceived health, and a variety of other health and status-related factors, accounted for only a small portion of black and male respondents' optimism, he said.

"We just don't know how people come up with their estimated life expectancies. There seems to be some kind of cultural norm or standard, but we're not clear where it comes from," he said. Mirowsky said studies like this are important as more people are expected to manage their own economic future after retirement.

"At one time, most people worked for big companies that had a retirement plan and professionals to determine how much money employees needed after they retired," he said. "But increasingly employers have shifted away from that toward individually managed retirement savings accounts. If people are going to manage their own retirements, one of the questions is whether they have a good idea of how long they are going to live." Because most people have a slightly optimistic view of their life expectancy, it may be that they will save more and retire later, which would make good economic sense, Mirowsky said. However, it is not yet known if people will act on these life expectancy beliefs and plan accordingly.

This research was funded by the National Institute on Aging.

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