View report page

12
Of these local deaths, 58 per cent. of those males were persons of
sixty-five or over, 32 per cent. of seventy-five and over, and eighty-five
and over 7 per cent. The corresponding figures for females were 74, 52
and 16. Of the local residents who died last year, 42 per cent. had reached
the age of 75 and 12 had reached the age of 85.
In recent years there has been an extraordinary increase in the
expectation of life. For males, compared with a figure of 40 of 100 years
ago, today's figure is 68. For females the figure of 44 has jumped to
today's 74. It is a popular misconception that this means that we are
living that much longer. That is not the position. Most of the increase
in the expectation of life is due to the saving in the previous large numbers
of infant deaths. These were so many that while the expectation of life
at birth of boys in 1871 was forty-one. the expectation of life at one year
of age was forty-eight. With the diminution in these infant deaths, the
expectation of life of those at one year of age is now very little different
from those at birth, the actual figures for boys being sixty-nine and
sixty-eight.
The effect of this saving of infant births was more marked in the
earlier years of the century when the rate was falling rapidly. The
expectation of life for boys which in the years 1910 to 1912 was fifty-two
had reached fifty-nine by 1930/1932 and sixty-seven by 1953. Since then
however, the figure has remained much the same, being sixty-eight for
each of the years 1953 to 1957. At the same time, the expectation of life
of boys of one year of age has steadily approximated to the figure of
expectation of life at birth, the difference of six in the years 1910 to 1912
becoming narrowed to a difference of one by 1957. This stabilising of the
figure of the expectation of life, whether at birth or at one year of age,
indicates that the separate units of the population are not living to much
greater ages than before. Considering the expectation of life of those
aged sixty-five, there is between the expectation for males in 1957 and the
years in the first decade of the century only one years' difference, and for
females only three years difference.
Infant Mortality
The infant mortality rate is the ratio of the number of infant deaths
under one year per thousand born in the year. Although higher rates are
still found where environmental conditions are not satisfactory, this rate
is not these days the index it used to be of the general healthiness of the
district. This is because the marked saving in the infant deaths which has
been seen in this century, has been largely the result of the saving of
those deaths occurring after the first week, and more so after the first
month of age, and which were due to environmental factors. Most ot the
infant deaths which now occur take place within the first days or even the
first hours of birth and are now more related to conditions operating at
birth.
The local rates have constantly been below the national rates; with
the rapid fall in the rates for the country as a whole, this gap is narrowing.
The improvement in local rates has not been a steady one year by year
but has been in a series of jumps. In 1947 there were ninety-two infant