Of the 116 graduates in my high-school class, 54 percent are still living. The graph below traces the survival rate from 1960, the first year in which a graduate died. Also shown, at 5-year intervals, are the expected survival percentages for persons born in 2020 and 1939-41.
Expected survival rates have moved upward to match the longevity of my class, which is far greater than would have been expected when its members were born. The average attained age of class members, living and dead, is 76 years and rising. The average life expectancy of a person born in 2020 is about 80 years. The average life expectancy of class members when they were born in 1939-41 was only 65 years.*
* The life expectancy values are for whites. Our high-school class, like our small city at the time, was all-white. According to the 2010 census, it has remained almost all white; 2.5 percent of the population was non-white and only 0.3 percent of the population was black.