Women are still outliving men by about 5.7 years, according to the latest statistics.
The Golden State has the largest number of residents living well into their golden years, according to a new U.S. Census report issued Sept. 22.
California reported 10,623 residents over 100 years old, followed by New York (6,921), Florida (6,580), and Texas (4,435) as the top states with the highest population of centenarians.
Alaska recorded only 94 centenarians, which was the fewest, followed by Wyoming (126), Vermont (167), and Delaware (197), with each having fewer than 200 centenarians statewide, according to the census report.
The new report “Centenarians: 2020” examined living arrangements and other details of the 80,139 people living in the U.S. who were 100 years old or older in 2020.
“Living to the age of 100 is extremely rare,” the census wrote in the report.
In 2020, U.S. residents who lived until the age of 65 were expected to reach about 83.5 years old on average.
“Centenarians … defied those odds,” the census reported.
Beyond living arrangements and locations, the census also found more men were living past age 100 in 2020, when compared to 2010 census tallies.
Centenarians remain overwhelmingly female—accounting for nearly 79 percent of the population. But that percentage has declined. In 2010, nearly 83 percent were female.
“Centenarians, a largely White alone and female population, became slightly more racially diverse and male in 2020,” the census reported. “The increase in racial diversity (i.e., about an 8 percentage-point decline in the White alone share) was on par with what was shown for other age groups among the older population.”
The only group of centenarians to decline in the past decade was African Americans, who dropped from 12.2 percent in 2010 to 10.3 percent in 2020.
Age and Sex Differences
More than half—or nearly 61 percent—of the centenarians in the U.S were 100 or 101.
Super-centenarians—people who were 110 or older—numbered 1,933 nationwide, according to the census.
According to a recent National Center for Health Statistics report, females generally live about 5.7 years longer than males. Women are expected to live to 79.9 years on average, while men live to about 74.2 years, reported the census.
