“The wonders of modern medicine and nutrition make it easy to believe we enjoy longer lives than at any time in human history, but we may not be that special after all.” SOURCE: BBC

This BBC article explores many of our assumptions about demographic issues before statistics were recorded.  This article especially looks at the notion that our life span has been increasing throughout history.  This would be a good article to get some background information about stage 1 of the demographic transition.  In a nutshell, the article’s premise is that just because life expectancy is increasing, it does not mean that our lifespan is the main reason.  The main reason life expectancy has improved is that more children are surviving their early years not because we have extended the lifespan of elderly so much.

GeoEd Tags: medical, population, statistics, mortality.

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