Average life expectancy at birth was significantly lowered in the past due to high childhood mortality rates.

“throughout history people have always lived into their 70s and 80s and beyond as long as they survived childhood and i'll just say this very quickly paul is that what people don't understand when they say well we didn't live as long because you know the average age of death the united states was 49.3 years roughly in 1900 that's because in the year 1800 43.3 percent of the world's children didn't survive to see their fifth birthday in 1900 36.2 of the world's children didn't survive to see their fifth birthday”