This document discusses aging, senescence, and longevity. It examines world records for longevity and whether maximum longevity is increasing. While maximum longevity is around 122 years, maximum life expectancy is unlikely to reach 120 due to heterogeneity. Life expectancy has likely slowed or may stop increasing between 90-100 years. Population aging is a global phenomenon that endangers pension and health care systems. However, if threshold ages are properly adjusted, aging driven by improved survival is no longer a problem, though fertility-related aging issues remain. The document concludes there are physical limits to aging and survival that are unknown, but societies must adapt to population aging.

1. DiSIA
DIPARTIMENTO DI STATISTICA,
INFORMATICA, APPLICAZIONI
"GIUSEPPE PARENTI"
Ageing, senescence
and longevity:
are there limits?
Gustavo De Santis
Migration Policy Centre, Forum on Migration, Citizenship and
Demography:
Conference on Demography
European University Institute (Fiesole, Italy), 4-5 February 2016

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Yasutaro Koide (13 Mar 1903 - 19 Jan 2016)
Source: «La Repubblica», 19/1/2016 2

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Other world records of longevity
3
• The male longevity record now belongs to another Japanese:
Masamitsu Yoshida (aged 111). As for females, the world record
of longevity belongs to an American (Brooklyn, New York),
Susannah Mushatt, aged 116 (Source: La Repubblica,
19/1/2016)
• Other famous cases, of people who died recently, are those of
the French Jeanne Calment (who died in 1997, at the age of 122
years and five months). Then, the American Sarah Knauss
reached 119 years, while the Canadian Marie-Louise Meilleur
and Japanese Misao Okawa reached 117. Eight more cases
have been documented to have reached 116 years between
1990 to 2014, and twenty-five have reached 115 years (Source:
Jacques Vallin, in N-IUSSP, www.niussp.org).

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Highest age at death, by sex and year
(Sweden 1861-1999)
Source: Wilmoth et al (2000) “Increase of maximum life-span in Sweden”, 1861-1999, Science n° 289, p. 2366-68 4

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Maximum longevity vs maximum life expectancy
5
• Maximum longevity? Probably just above 122 years
(Source: J. Vallin, in N-IUSSP)
• Is this maximum longevity increasing? No solid
evidence, as yet. (Bad data and few observations for
the past, so that the time series is actually much
shorter that it seems.)
• Does this imply that life expectancy too will reach 120
years? Highly unlikely, because life expectancy is an
average, not a maximum – and heterogeneity (frailty)
matters a lot. Most probably, then, e0 will stop
increasing somewhere between 90 and 100 years.
And these levels will not be reached tomorrow.

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Highest life expectancy (World, 1840-2000):
A straight line?
Source: Oeppen and Vaupel (2002) “Broken limits to life expectancy”, Science, 296 (10), p. 1029-1031 6

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Highest life expectancy (World, 1750-2000):
probably slowing down
Source: Vallin and Meslé (2009) “The segmented trend line of highest life expectancies”, P&DR, 35(1), p. 159-187 7

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Life expectancy at birth by world region, 1950-2050
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 8

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Probability of survival to age 80 by sex and region,
birth cohorts of 1950-1955 and 2000-2005
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 9

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The over 60 population is the fastest growing age
group worldwide
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 10

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Population over 60: rampant (not only in Europe)
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 11

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Ageing is a worldwide phenomenon
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 12
Germany
Brazil

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Sustainability of pension systems endangered
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 13
• “In some countries, large majorities of older people
are covered by existing pay-as-you go or unfunded
pension programmes, but declining old-age
support ratios imply that such programmes may
struggle to maintain adequate income support into
the future.
• In response, some countries are pursuing pension
system reforms, such as increasing the statutory
ages at retirement and encouraging private
savings.”

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Cost of health care systems may skyrocket
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 14
• “Health care systems must adapt to meet the
needs of growing numbers of older persons.
• In countries [with good health systems] public
policies are needed to mitigate the upward
pressure on national health care budgets exerted
by the rising costs of health care services, and the
longer lifespans and increasing numbers of older
persons.”

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In the eyes of the beholder?
Source: Own elaborations on UN data
* P&DR
15
Share aged 65+
Share with a residual life
expectancy of 15 years or less (i.e.,
moving “beta”)
[what Sanderson and Sherbov
(2013, 2015)* have recently
labelled “prospective old age”]

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Other approaches to measuring ageing (Who is old?)
Source: UN (2015) World Population Ageing 16
• Last five years of life (because health cost soar in
the final phase of one’s life): called “Health care
cost old age” (Sanderson and Sherbov, P&DR,
2015). (A/N Not qualitatively different from the
previous indicator, remaining life span of 15 years
or less)
• “Characteristics” approach: based on health, or
performance, memory, and the like (A/N only for
samples, not always representative, or
comparable)

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Immediate recall score, by age and region
Source: Skirbekk V., Loichinger E., Weber D. (2012) Variation in cognitive functioning as a refined approach to comparing aging
across countries, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 109 (3): 770-774. 17
80 85 90

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Survival is (by large) the main driver of ageing,
in the long run (not fertility or migration)
Source: Own elaborations on UN (2015) data 18
Europe, early 1950s
Stationary population
Actual population

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Actual and stationary population: comparing
age structures in 1952 (Europe)
Source: Own elaborations on UN (2015) data 19
1952

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Survival and ageing (Europe, 150
years of estimates and projections)
Source: Own elaborations on UN (2015) data 20
1952
2012
2047
2097

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The difference between Px and Lx is limited and
decreasing
Sum of absolute % differences, over 21 5-year age classes
Source: Own elaborations on UN (2015) data 21

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Ageing is no longer an issue if
threshold ages are properly adjusted
Source: Own elaborations on UN (2015) data 22

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Conclusions: limits?
23
• IF we can properly adjust threshold ages, the part of
ageing driven by survival (the most important, in the long
run) is no longer an issue. (Big IF! And there will still be
ageing problems linked to fertility)
• If this adjustment is not possible, or not fully (first limit),
then greater need for transfers between generations,
which is arguably harder to push beyond certain levels
(Laffer curve, and similar objections) (second limit).
• I don’t know what the physical (natural) limits to ageing
and survival are. I know that we must overcome our own
(social) limits, i.e., we must be capable of adapting to
the ageing society that we are creating. Or be prepared
to pay the consequences.

24. DiSIA
DIPARTIMENTO DI STATISTICA,
INFORMATICA, APPLICAZIONI
"GIUSEPPE PARENTI"
Ageing, senescence
and longevity:
are there limits?
Gustavo De Santis
Migration Policy Centre, Forum on Migration, Citizenship and
Demography:
Conference on Demography
European University Institute (Fiesole, Italy), 4-5 February 2016