Notices by Pete / Syllopsium (syllopsium@peoplemaking.games)

@clacke @cujobyte Improved health care and living conditions within a person's lifetime can substantially improve their life expectancy if they survive that long.

At day one a UK 1940s baby boy has around 66 years of expected lifespan on average, but that's not uniform throughout their lifespan. Death is more probable as an infant, in early childhood, later teenage years, or (for women) in childbirth. Your personal expectancy will go up over time because you've reached a particular age, assuming no notable chronic health conditions.

So, no, they absolutely do not 'get six years'.

@cujobyte That's not the way the statistics work. The average age may be 76, but that includes everyone including those who die younger than retirement age.

Looking at UK stats (OK, different, but our average lifespan has gone down too), a man born in 1951 has an average lifespan of 66 years and until relatively recently the old age pension kicked in at age 65 for men (it's now slowly increasing).

However, if a man born in 1946 reached 65 in 2011 (matching the latest available data) they could expect to live another 18 years on average.

Which isn't to say that the increasing retirement age doesn't suck, but you can expect to live more than 6 years, and it all has to be funded somehow.