Life expectancy among less-educated white women is decreasing while their better-educated peers are gaining longevity, a new study finds.
According to the researchers, joblessness is one key factor in the the trend. The other is smoking.
“Mortality is declining for high-educated women, but is increasing for low-educated women,” said study co-author Jennifer Karas Montez, a research fellow in the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
American men, regardless of education level, enjoy an increasing life expectancy, but the mortality gap is widening between white women who didn’t complete high school and those who did, the researchers said.
From 2002 to 2006, the chances of dying for women without a high school education were 66 percent higher than for women who completed high school, the researchers found.
Employment and smoking are the two factors that appear to explain this disparity, Montez said.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor
via Joblessness tied to shortened lifespans for less-educated women.
Job Market Monitor 
It isn’t the education, it is $$/jobs/lifestyle
Posted by bearspawprint | May 30, 2013, 1:23 pm+ Unemployment or not
Posted by Job Market Monitor | May 30, 2013, 1:31 pmI also suspect part of it is perception of well being/health as it is a conclusion taken from self-reported comments. Access to health care was not factored in. As we women age, access to health care becomes more difficult than it does for men, and concerns about health issues are not taken as seriously for women, as men. Only those with $$ can insist of care. And even they have to insist. Actually, the static is too superficial to draw ANY conclusions. It is useful for formulating questions.
Posted by bearspawprint | May 30, 2013, 1:58 pm