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February 16, 2009

How many people have lived to a hundred

The BlueEyedGirl and I were wondering how many people have ever lived that lived longer than her grandfather, who is currently in his mid nineties. Then I saw an article on estimating the number of centenarians:

The Census counted 32,194 centenarians in 1980, for example. But an analysis published seven years later estimated that only 15,000 were true centenarians. Many of the rest were children under 13 whose birth dates were incorrectly placed in the 19th century. Others were the result of older Census respondents mistakenly listing children in their household as parents. The Census counted these phantom household members, and assigned them an older age than the respondent, sometimes topping 100.

Realizing this problem, the Census Bureau didn't allow for any children or grandchildren over age 90 starting in 1990. But the centenarian count that year of 37,306 was still highly questionable. For instance, the Census counted more than 1,500 whites 110 or older. But more than two-thirds of them said they had no mobility or personal-care limitations -- a "very doubtful" result suggesting many weren't really that old, according to a subsequent Census report.

Let's say the number above is right. There were about 248 million people in 1990 so that makes for 15 in every 100 thousand people. Let's take that a generous upper bound for the rate of centenarians in human history, noting that in a couple of societies like contemporary Japan, it is probably higher. We know that conservatively over 106 billion people have ever lived (Wow fact of the day), which would make for about 16 million people to make it to a hundred.

Most of the people who ever lived did so under standards more akin to subsistence farming than contemporary America, so that number is much too high. But it might due as a decent upper bound.

Posted by OneEyedMan at February 16, 2009 8:25 AM

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