If you adjust for famines and diseases (and child birth, in the case of women), life expectancy between the two groups then probably wasn't so different, or for that matter not so different from what it is today. Similarly, comparing life expectancy of anyone with that of those who lived through the Black Death isn't fair. Famines disproportionally afflicted the poor, but methinks comparing the life expectancy of the wealthy elite who can afford food during a harvest failure with that of the poor who cannot is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Yet, insofar as I understood, the difference between the two was not that significant in practice. Primarily, I'd put forward, because the upper classes had food to begin with during famines. Yes, a nobleman or a monarch, who enjoyed slightly better hygiene than the commoner, and more/better food, would have lived somewhat longer. you'd live up to age 64 or so on average in late Medieval England if you made it to adulthood).
Life expectancy upon reaching adulthood was shorter in the past than it is today (e.g. They were a major killer that disproportionally affected the lower classes. Other major life shorteners of the time, like Smallpox, similarly were equal opportunity pests.įamines were a thing in the past. Diseases occasionally affect the lower classes more than the upper ones to some degree or vice versa, and the Plague may have affected the former a tiny bit more than the latter (who could afford to flee) - but this is a far cry from the degree by which Cholera was a poor's disease first and foremost in the 19th. There were regular pandemics at the time. Both of the latter issues were common, for the rich and poor alike, until well into the industrial revolution (end of the 19th), so it's more interesting to look at life expectancy after childhood. Life expectancy at birth isn't such a great data point, when half or more newborns don't make it to adulthood or when women frequently die while giving birth. (Partial answer.) I think three points are worth noting about life expectancy before comparing today's figures with those in the past:
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