Since 1990, global life expectancy has increased 3 years per decade. Life expectancy at older ages for both sexes has also increased, particularly since 1970, in many developed countries. This trend is most striking in data from my own country Australia. See slide below.
In contrast, life expectancy has stagnated or reversed for periods in some regions. For example, while life expectancy for men aged 60 in high income countries has increased recently at an average of 1.63 years per decade, the rate in former Soviet countries has been much lower at 0.22 years per decade.
In my talk at the Swiss Re conference The Future of Human Longevity (Zurich, Nov 2013) I summarized recent work to examine evidence for compression of mortality. I found no evidence of this, suggesting that we seem to be quite a long way from biological limits to life span at the population level, and that global increases in life expectancy are likely to continue.
A video of my talk can be found at the link below.
Colin Mathers 