Today, it is no longer so rare to live to the age of 95, 100 and over in France… In 2024, the country will have more than 31,000 centenarians (i.e. 30 times more than 50 years ago ) and according to INSEE forecasts, this figure could reach more than 200,000 in 2070. Current probabilities show that 1% of newborn boys and 4% of newborn girls will be centenarians.
No matter what age we reach, the end of life is an obligatory passage that spares no one. You can die suddenly from an accident, or more gradually from cancer, a heart problem, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. When it comes to the death of an elderly, or very elderly, person diagnosed of any pathology (at least publicly), it is quite common to hear that this person “died of old age”. “In practice, we do not die of old age, we die of illness. We die from an event that happens in life […] Old age is the symptom of the end, of a body that is failing, either affected by a pathology that shortens lifespan or simply by organs that are exhausted and it is the physiological end of life“, explained Dr Sophie Moulias, geriatrician in Paris, and Giovanna Marsico, director of the National End of Life Palliative Care Center in a previous article.
Without necessarily reaching canonical ages, people are generally living older and older in France. But at what age are we more likely to die? On average, women live longer than men: around 86 years for women and 80 years for men. “However, more than half of boys born today will live to at least 83 years old, and even up to 88 years old for girls. At these ages, the risk of dying within the year (defined by what we call “the mortality quotient”, editor’s note) is very high: between 6 and 8%”, can we read in the report Population and Societies published by the National Institute of Demographic Studies (Ined). Which may explain why, ultimately, few people become centenarians.
According to INED, the risk of mortality is very low during childhood, then increases exponentially from the age of 30 and at any age the risk is lower for women. From age 95, the rates are poorly estimated due to errors in age declaration in the census and, at very old ages (105 years and over), because of the low number of survivors and therefore deaths.