Just think about what he is saying, you don't even need to look it up: the average life expectancy has been increasing every year, of course with some bumps, but at the beginning of the 20th century, it was only 31 years! In 2012, it was 67 years. And there are more people overall today than there were in the early 1900s - so, of course, there are more people age 65 or older today, than there have ever been before. Yes?
Two-thirds of the people, in all of history, who have lived to be 65 are alive today.
See the attached Wiki and scroll down to "number of people who have lived"
That said, there are an awful lot of people around.
Source is, Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., President and CEO
Over the past 35+ years, Dr. Ken Dychtwald has emerged as North America’s foremost visionary and original thinker regarding the lifestyle, marketing, healthcare and workforce implications of the longevity revolution. He is a psychologist, gerontologist, documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur and best-selling+more
Mr Fisher, maybe I confused the issue. I was referring only to people who are 65 or older and still stand by what Ken reported.
Just think about what he is saying, you don't even need to look it up: the average life expectancy has been increasing every year, of course with some bumps, but at the beginning of the 20th century, it was only 31 years! In 2012, it was 67 years. And there are more people overall today than there were in the early 1900s - so, of course, there are more people age 65 or older today, than there have ever been before. Yes?
since, for most of recorded history, life spans were well below 65.
I found a site of the Population Research Board which estimated that the number of persons ever born was around 108 Billion; current world population is around 7 Billion, or just under 7% of people ever born. Of the current 7 Billion or so population several sources estimate that about 660 Million current persons are 65 or older, or just less than 10% of the 7 Billion total. But if that 660 Million is in deed 2/3 of all the people ever to reach age 65, then the total ever to reach 65 would only be around 1 Billion, or less than 1% of the 108 Billion persons ever born. That seems a bit unlikely. Still, I couldn't find a definitive answer to the factoid introduced one way or the other; given that there are so many reasons that people in general live longer today than ever before (better nutrition, better health care, eradication of a whole bunch of diseases, etc.) it is possible that the current over-65 population is a significant percentage of all persons ever to reach that age, but 2/3 seems awfully high. To put it in simple terms, that would mean that, of the 108 Billion persons ever born, over 99% died without reaching age 65, and that just seems unlikely.
Interesting topic though.