The Prospects of Life 1951-71

The most important changes in the state of mankind during the present century may not have been political, or economic, but biological. The devastating effect of a declining death rate in the poor countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America has already been widely discussed in terms of the need for an extensive use of family planning, a faster rate of growth among backward economies, and a greater amount of aid and assistance from the rich countries of the world.

What is perhaps not quite so generally debated is the effect of demographic and other biological changes on the behaviour of people in the rich countries. Some of these effects have become particularly noticeable during the past quarter of a century, although, in almost every case what has been happening has been manifest for longer than that.

In most industrial countries, for example, the average expectation of life has increased from some forty-eight years at the beginning of this century, through sixty-two years in 1940, to around seventy years now. The figures are, of course, different in different countries.