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How Long Will You Live
How Long Will I Live?
No matter what age you are you probably wonder how long you will live.
The problem is, there is no easy way to tell how long you will live. Each individual is different. Your lifestyle, current health, family heredity, age, gender, income level, and race (to name a few factors) all play a role.
When you were a young person just out of school, retirement seems a long way off. You probably thought you would live forever. A long, long time, anyway.
But, as you get older you notice that you recover from illness more slowly, you can't exercise like you used to, you gain weight all too easily, you have a chronic illness that never seems to go away, and you feel aches you never felt before.
You realize that someday you are going to die. But, you still want to know how long you will live.
Because of all the individual factors, people who study life expectancy can only give average life spans. They can measure how long people live once they reach a given age.
At birth, the average baby in the United States, born in 2003, will live to reach 77.5 years of age.
And that's great. But, how long will the average person live once they retire? Here are the estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics for the year 2003 (latest data available):
Once you reach age 65, the life expectancy is as follows:
| All Races | White | Black or African American |
Both
sexes | Male | Female | Both
sexes | Male | Female | Both
sexes | Male | Female |
| 18.4 | 16.8 | 19.8 | 18.5 | 16.9 | 19.8 | 17.0 | 14.9 | 18.5 |
And, once you reach age 75, the life expectancy is:
| All Races | White | Black or African American |
Both
sexes | Male | Female | Both
sexes | Male | Female | Both
sexes | Male | Female |
| 11.8 | 10.5 | 12.6 |
11.7 | 10.5 | 12.6 |
11.4 | 9.8 | 12.4 |
As you can see, once you reach retirement age you do need to have money available for a number of years.
To live longer than average you need to live a healthy lifestyle and avoid those factors that contribute to an early death. So, what are the leading causes of death?
The National Center for Health Statistics also lists the 15 leading causes of death in 2003. They were:
- Diseases of heart (heart disease)
- Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
- Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases
- Accidents (unintentional injuries)
- Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)
- Influenza and pneumonia
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease)
- Septicemia
- Intentional self-harm (suicide)
- Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
- Essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension)
- Parkinson’s disease
- Assault (homicide)
You can read about how to reduce your chances for being affected by these causes of death. You should consult with your doctor for any recommendations. And you should follow recommendations that will allow you to life to a healthy, old age.
You must also prepare financially for those years after retirement.
This means you should save and invest your money wisely. And, helping you do that is one of the purposes of BobShermanCredit.com.
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