Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Will You Still be Alive for Your 50th HS Reunion?
My wife and I were high school sweethearts and our 50th high school reunion is coming up this year. A member of the reunion committee just sent us a sobering list of classmates who had died since we all graduated from high school and our first reaction was shock at the number--43 out of a graduating class of 412--10 percent. Being a demographer, I then checked the life tables to see what we should have expected. The latest single-year-of-age life tables for the US are available from the National Center for Health Statistics of the US Centers for Disease Control. These data refer to 2007 and so the numbers will be very conservative because my classmates and I were born into a world with a lower life expectancy (71 years at birth) than prevailed in 2007 (81 years at birth). Our high school was predominantly white, so I have used the life tables for that group. It turns out that a white male graduating from high school in 1962 had a 21 percent chance of dying before that 50th reunion, while for females it was a 13 percent chance. Among our classmates, 12 percent of females have thus far died and that number is not statistically significant different from the expected value of 13 percent. However, among males, only 9 percent have thus far died (although one of them was murdered in a very high profile case), and that is statistically significant lower than expected. Of course, it may well be that more males have died and we just don't know about them--are males more likely to "disappear" from view than females? Perhaps. In all events, it was sobering to realize that the initial number of dead classmates was not higher than we should have expected.
Thank you for this information. My 50th is coming up next fall (class or '64) and I, too, was curious after reading all the "In Memoriams." Of 600 students, we know of 82 deaths, but many classmates are unaccounted for. Like yours, our class was middle class and totally white. We only lost 3 to Viet Nam.
ReplyDeleteI also graduated in 1964. 50 yr reunion this fall of 600 students 67 deaths and add 5 from Viet Nam not worth the lives. I was shocked looking at those 18yr old faces and realizing they were gone. Though is seems to be the average.
DeleteSimilar comment and thanks. We lost about 10% of our class of '64. One non-white; middle class; possibly 1 death to war; heavy college attendance; 20% have whereabouts unconfirmed (nearly all assumed alive); we'd been concerned as so many had died of cancer (with several in remission)
ReplyDeleteIt is sure difficult to obtain HS information . i thought it would be easy on the internet. information such as,,deaths , divorced,whos in prison, famous classmates etc..
ReplyDeleteYes, I think this information is pretty hard to reconstruct. You really need to have someone keep track of people all along, from the moment of high school graduation.
DeleteThis doesn't surprise me, slightly over 10% of our class has passed away, we just finished our 50-year reunion.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to weigh in here and let you know about my class of 1967. I was recently in attendance at a 50 year reunion planning meeting. We went to Hobbton High School in northern Sampson Co. in NC. It was a rural school with a class of only 88. We sent men to Vietnam but no one died there. 2 died in separate traffic accidents and a third died from drowning in the bathtub during an epilectic seizure the first year after graduation. We were all caucasian. 22 more have died
ReplyDeletethe following 49 years. This is a
28% death rate and you all are talking 11% That makes my class 2 1/2 times the norm.
We have had an average of a death every other year for 50 years.
Sorry about your losses. Keep in mind that smaller class size makes it easier to have a "outlier" percentage. In a class of 5 you'll most likely have 0% or 20% if the average is 10%. At https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm it calculates a confidence interval of 6.27 for an 88 sample at 10%.
DeleteWe just had our 55th and 30 out of 90 have passed
ReplyDeleteJust had our 50th class reunion (Sept ‘22). Out of 1050 graduated, there were confirmed 98 deaths.
ReplyDeleteNearly 12 percent of my high school class were dead 50 years later
ReplyDeleteI am from a very small graduating class (44) from rural state. Our 50th is upcoming this year and almost 20% of that class have passed. About 1/2 of those, (9 deaths in all), died due to accidental causes and the other 1/2 died from heart issues.
ReplyDelete1972 graduate, 275 in class, 50 deceased, too many!
ReplyDeleteOut of my clas of 425, 54 have passed. We mourn their passing, but its average I guesss.
ReplyDeleteClass of 1965 Northampton Mass approximately 340 in senior class with 100 dead. I would venture the climate of the 60's was the main reason for the relatively high number but it is hard to fathom.
ReplyDeleteWe had our 50 year on Oct 12, 2024. Our graduating class was 162. We had 41 that did not survive to the reunion, 18 women & 23 men, roughly 25% did not make. We grew up in a small industrial community with many chemical plants and refineries. I expect we are a poisoned cluster group considering OSHA was just coming into being.
ReplyDelete