The gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor is growing instead of shrinking

​Life expectancies have gone up significantly in the last 50 years, and it’s natural to think that they’re just going to continue to go up. Globally, though, much of that gain has come in developing countries, thanks to very basic improvements like better sanitation, better nutrition, and in the last few decades, less war (the gains in developed countries are leveling off somewhat, since there’s only so much you can do to reverse the effects of old age). But alarmingly, recently we’ve seen some signs that some of those gains are starting to reverse​ in America, and it’s exacerbated by inequality. As gaps in income grow, so too do gaps in life span between America’s most and least affluent.

This got a lot of attention back in November, with a study by Angus Deaton (a Nobel laureate in economics) showing that mortality for U.S. whites age 45 to 54 was going up​, and had been since 1998. Some experts argued that this was mostly a statistical accident  (in other words, it reflected the fact that the median age within ​the 45-54 bin was going up in that period, because of the large number of Baby Boomers passing through that group, being replaced by the less numerous Gen Xers).

However, whether that was the explanation for the overall increase or not, the increase was limited to people with a high school degree or less. The death rate for the college-educated kept going down. Also, it matched results found in earlier studies, such as one in 2012 which found the trend especially present among white working-class women. While these studies didn’t point directly to causes, they suggested that higher rates of smoking, drug overdoses, and obesity among poorer whites was at the root of it.

And now another study, this time from the Brookings Institution, has confirmed that there's something going on with life expectancies, and it's increasingly related to inequality.​​