age of death

[bubbles4920]

is it true that poorer, working class people die younger than more affluent people?

[Buenchico]

At the extremes, there's about 7 years difference.

Most recent government statistics (published October 2007):

Life expectancy for Social Class 1 males = 80.0 years.
Life expectancy for Social Class 5 males = 72.7 years.

Life expectancy for Social Class 1 females = 85.1 years
Life expectancy for Social Class 5 females = 78.1 years

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/le1007.pdf

Chris

[VHG]

I suppose there could be all sorts of reasons for this:

Working class people do more manual jobs, hence accidents at work, or long term injuries from manual labour leading to early death (miners for example).

Working class people may have poorer diets, either through buying poor quality food or fast food, also high fat food and so on. Lack of education about food amongst working class may also play a part.

Working class people MAY be more likely to smoke and drink, leading to early death ( I know affluent people can also drink and smoke to excess).

Poor housing also probably contributes to early death (colder houses, sanitation etc).

Working class people are less likely to be able to afford extra health care, or to be in a private medical scheme like BUBA.

While a generalization I would guess affluent people are overall better educated so may be quicker at getting medical advice when they are ill, or looking after their bodies as they get older.

I guess this statistic is probably true in every country in the world, and no amount of money or education is ever going to change it.

[VHG]

Of course the other thing to bear in mind is that affluent people may have more to live for (nicer houses in nicer areas, more money for holidays and so on).

So they may actually WANT to live longer.

I am not sayng all working class people want to end their life early, but if you have a had a hard working life, and you find yourself at 70 or 80 with no money, in a cold house on a horrible housing estate you may gradually lose the will to live.

I know that during say Victorian times, when life for the poor was AWFUL, many people spent a lot of time drunk to try to escape their terrible lives. I am sure this contributed to many early deaths durng that period.

[carlton23]

Personally speaking, I am 74 aand have been married to a wife in 10 million, whom is 14yrs my junior and I plan to live with her forever,......... so far so good. This is the plan for a long life.

[rov1200]

Have you noticed when they interview these oldies > 80 they all seem to have a working class background and speech. The one exception was the Queen Mother who went past 100. Most working class people in the past smoked heavily so this would skew the tables.

[Richard1966]

Hi. I do some work with our local heath care trust and one of the things they are aware of is that people who are in lower paid jobs tend to have less security and are less likely to seek time off work when they are ill for fear of losing their job. This means that they are often less likely to see medical intervention for an illness until the effects are severe. this often means that they have left it beyond the stage where treatments can be affective. this is especially the case for many cancers, but also heart disease.

[gucciman]

rich people are lazy ba****ds who sit on the arses in nice cosy warm offices rather than grafting for a living, thats why they live longer!