Will most of the children born today live to the age of 100?
Up until the twentieth century, people seldom lived to be a hundred. But since the end of the Second World War, the number of these people, called centenarians, has been rising. On January 1, 2024, France had over 31,000 centenarians, and according to INSEE predictions, it could have more than 200,000 in 2070.
Does this necessarily mean that the majority of children born today will live to the age of 100? Far from it! The current probabilities are that only 1.1% of newborn boys and 4.3% of newborn girls will live to that age. There are more and more centenarians now because immediately after the war the corresponding probabilities were infinitesimal. It should be noted also that more than half of boys born today will live to at least age 83, and over half of girls to at least 88. But once a person reaches one of those ages, their risk of dying within that year is very high: between 6% and 8%. This means that, overall, few people become centenarians.
Sources :
France Meslé, Jacques Vallin, Carlo-Giovanni Camarda, Arianna Caporali, Svitlana Poniakina, Laurent Toussaint, Jean-Marie Robine, Living beyond age 105: When the improbable becomes reality, 2024, Population and Societies, no. 621
Online: August 2024
Updated: August 2024