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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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life expectancy
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One of the most basic changes in western societies has been the vastly increased life expectancy of the population, leading to an unprecedented imbalance towards the elderly. *Engels, writing about Manchester in the 1840s, said that the average age of death (including *infant mortality) was 35 in professional families, 22 in the families of higher craftsmen, and just 15 in the families of labourers. Today a male is given an average life expectancy of about 72 at birth, and a female of about 78. In reality the figures will be higher, since these project forward the present-day statistics of death; as health and medicine improve, so does everyone's life expectancy.
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Until her death in March 1993 the oldest person in Britain was the 115-year-old Charlotte Hughes (b. 1877), with the greatest age of anyone in British history since reliable records began; she passed on 25 February 1992 the previous figure of 114 years and 6 months. The oldest recorded man in British history was John Evans (1877–1990), who was fitted with a pacemaker when he was 108 and died two months short of his 113th birthday (an age far exceeded by the semi-legendary *Old Parr).
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