January 9, 2013

No Country for Young Men

According to a new report, compared to 16 other rich countries, the U.S. does great in life expectancy for codgers, but bad in life expectancy for everybody below 80, and is last compared to other nice places for people below 55.

56 comments:

Anonymous said...

What other "rich" countries have demographics similar to the united states?

Anonymous said...

Clearly, we need to privatize Medicare so seniors can enjoy the high quality health care that young people enjoy!

The Reluctant Apostate said...

That reminds me of Henry Harpending's post on The Black-White Mortality Crossover.

Jefferson said...

The life expectancy in the U.S is considered high when you factor in that such a high percentage of Americans are overweight or obese.

Most Americans eat so much pizza, chocolate, candy, cheetos, hotdogs, fries, and hamburgers, our life expectancy should only be 50, but it's not.

Anonymous said...

Anon is right about America's demographic diversity often tainting comparisons to other advanced, 1st world nations. But the blacks, who are notoriously short lived (even the law-abiding ones,) have remained a relatively stable percentage of our population. Our new friends from across the border and their, uh, plentiful spawn have lower life expectancy than whites.

Reg Cæsar said...

Almost all Americans over 70 are white, or (American) blacks, who do even better than whites beyond a certain age. Young Americans are quite a motley mix. Slightly over half are white, and the native blacks are as bad as their grandparents are good.

"Rich" here reminds me of "industrialized" in "gun crime" analyses-- it's a euphemism for "white, wiith the odd token Asian".
Nobody ever compares America with Jamaica.

Anonymous said...

We have more murder than other "rich" countries, and most victims tend to be relatively young. And we have more diabetes, and most die long before reaching 80.

If you've reached 80, you're probably relatively wealthy, and that correlates with being healthier, having better diet and medical care earlier in life, etc.

There are probably other factors at play, too.

Risto

DR said...

File under the department of duh... The leading cause of death for young people are traffic fatalities and gun violence.

America has a lot more cars and a lot more guns. American also has a lot more miles driven (since we live in suburbs) and more gangs (who generate a very high proportion of the gun deaths). Case closed.

Rex Little said...

What other "rich" countries have demographics similar to the united states?

To further clarify, how much of the difference is due to the greater tendency of younger NAM's to die by violence?

Dennis Dale said...

Needs to be broken down by race, like those PISA tests, to get a clearer picture.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, baby boomers.

Harbingeros said...

Speaking of harbingers: the juicers got shut out in the baseball hall of fame voting.

Are people putting it all together? The steroids in sports, the collapse of Anderson Accounting, the repeal of Glass-Stegall, the extreme corruption of the Clinton administration, the rise of W Bush....

...the country was a dirty, fixed, mafia state fifteen years ago and it has only gotten worse!

Auntie Analogue said...


Could this apparently increasing disparity between the U.S.'s and other rich nations' life expectancy for the young be due to the U.S.'s adamantine importation of scores of millions of fecund Third Worlders whose presence decreases mean and median life expectancy?

dearieme said...

It's easy to extend life expectancy for codgers if you keep the poor blighters on life support for weeks or months, in pain, or vegged-out. What you, or at least I, want is a good quality of life in old age, followed by a swift, unterrifying, painless death. In other words: no heroics, please, and plenty of morphine.


P.S. Isn't life expectancy for codgers likely to appear statistically extended if you've filtered out the intrinsically somewhat unhealthy at an earlier age?

Kaz said...

More NAM youth
More single mothers

There is only one direction this can go.

Jefferson said...

[QUOTE]Nobody ever compares America with Jamaica.[/QUOTE]

Liberals never want to talk about why gun control laws have been an epic fail in Black countries like Jamaica and South Africa.



Anonymous said...

While it is true that the lower life expectancy of younger Americans is largely due to demographics, it is interesting to note the the higher life expectancy of older Americans comes at a huge cost.

America spends a higher proportion of its GDP, almost 50% higher in fact, than anybody else.

Part of the lower expectancy also comes from the fact that a good part of the American public is miserably served 'health-care wise'.

Antioco Dascalon said...

I think that if you were born during the Great Depression and survived WWII, you might have a higher than expected life expectancy. But, yes, I think to not control by race is an appalling oversight.

Anonymous said...

Life expectancy by ethnicity in the US:

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/04/us-human-development-indices.html

JerseyGuy said...

Steve,
OT but here is a very insightful article from Joel Kotkin's New Geography regarding globalization in Silicon Valley and in America:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/003389-globalization-too-many-americans-are-dropping-under-radar

Anonymous said...

since we can't raise NAM life expectancy, expect our radical egalitarian elite to lower ours...

anony-mouse said...

Why are people here so hostile to people who pay into a Social Security System they won't collect from?

You should be grateful.

Mike43 said...

Question: After watching Nova last night, I wonder how the influence of Neanderthal genes influence modern development?

I believe the frequency of genes varies greatly, and is co-located with very successful populations. It may be interesting to explore.

Anonymous said...

" Our new friends from across the border and their, uh, plentiful spawn have lower life expectancy than whites."

Yes, but if they stay in Mexico they live to a ripe old age, even without advanced medical care.

Anonymous said...

I remember an NCHS report from back in the '60s or 70's that explained away most of the difference between the average US expectancy of life at birth versus average life expectancies at birth in other developed countries just by controlling for average weight at birth. The US had (and still has) a significantly lower average weight at birth than other developed countries and low birth weight is assciated with much higher neonatal mortality and later childhood mortality (Both of which are the largest contributors to lowering life expectancy at birth.) Most of this difference in average weight at birth between the US and other developed countries can be explained by the unique racial composition of the US and the lower average birth weight of sub-Saharan Africans versus all other racial groups. This is probably due to the smaller avergae head sizes and narrower pelvises of sub-Saharan Africans but here we are entering into Rushton territory where there be Tygers, Dragons, and Sea Serpents that I'm sure the generatorts of this report were prescient enough to foresee and avoid.

Anonymous said...

Is this the world's dumbest graphic or what? Did you know that if you are 114 years old you have one of the highest life expectancies in the world?

2Degrees said...

American's racial demographics are not atypical for the countries it is being compared two. 1/3 of all French newborns are NAM. In Holland it's even worse.

In New Zealand, some in the Maori Party are even arguing that Polynesians should be eligible for their pensions earlier than whites. Others, like the Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia, wants the overall pension age lowered precisely because so many Polynesians die young:

"You might take it at a lower rate at 60, moving up to a higher rate at 70. We think that's a lot more fair given that probably only there to four percent of our people actually reach that threshold."

our people = Maori, not all Kiwis.

Henry Canaday said...

In addition to the obvious racial differences, for about the last 40 years the suicide rate among young people has been increasing while the suicide rate among older people has been decreasing. Apparently Social Security, pensions, 401Ks and Medicare work better than a lot of American parenting, mono-parenting or non-parenting habits.

Chicago said...

Some elderly guy mentioned to me that his sons, who are in their late 50's, have been going to a lot of funerals of acquaintances that died in their 50's and early 60's, which is a relatively young age at which to die. A lot of heart attacks and cancers out there. Some were overweight, some weren't, some were active and didn't eat a lot of junk, and so on. Maybe the children of the current crop of elderly won't match their parents in longevity.

Anonymous said...

rotfl

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/12/literary-feuds-of-2012.html

Nook’d vs. Kindled in “War and Peace”
Barnes & Noble was briefly suspected of employing an outrageous anti-Amazon marketing strategy in May after blogger Philip Howard noticed that a version of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” sold by the chain store had substituted “nook” for every instance of the word “kindle” throughout the text,

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/12/literary-feuds-of-2012.html#ixzz2HanSqyU6

Pat Boyle said...

Steve, why would you publish a report like this in which the conclusion is so obviously a function of simply ignoring race? Everyone of the commenters seem to have spotted the fallacy. Are you just testing us?

Albertosaurus

Paul Mendez said...

Liberals never want to talk about why gun control laws have been an epic fail in Black countries like Jamaica and South Africa.

I just stumbled upon this recently:

World Intentional Homicide Rates per 100,000:

US Virgin Islands -- 39.2
Puerto Rico -- 26.2
US -- 4.8
Guam -- 0.6

Are there any differences between the gun laws in the United States and the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico?

And why are they so peaceful in Guam?

Anonymous said...

Your graph states that life expectancy is especially high for Americans over 75. The reason is, by that age, the average man is dead. So this is no country for any man of any age. There is truly a holocaust of men going on in this country. Not that anyone cares. We're too busy talking about Brittany quitting the X Factor.

NOTA said...

Veracitor, Reg Caesar and some anons speculate that the US mortality numbers are misleading because of the different ethnic mix between us and European countries, and also the changing in ethnic mix over time. But as far as I can tell, the numbers just don't support this. (Disclaimer: I'm way, way outside my area of expertise here, so I could be misreading the data somehow.)

As a starting point on this, infant mortality is way higher for blacks than whites, but it's lower for hispanics and Asians than whites. This is an old effect--Thomas Sowell pointed it out in a book years ago as an example of an inconvenient fact that contradicted a media story of discrimination explaining differences in outcomes. (Apparently, not only do IQ test designers hate blacks and love Asians, but obstetricians also hate blacks and love hispanics and Asians.)

There's probably some kind of effect in there of selective migration (sickly people ususally don't emigrate to another country, so first generation immigrants tend to be healthier than natives, and a large fraction of hispanic and Asian babies in the US are born to first-generation immigrants), but I have no idea whether it changes the picture any.

The CDC has a huge wealth of data on this stuff. If you look at the last page of this PDF file (the document is a revision of older numbers based on some improved method of calculation but it has the full data in it), you see remaining years of life as a function of age, by race, sex, and ethnicity. Hispanics have longer expected lifespans across almost the whole range of ages than non-hispanic whites (and that probably includes hispanics with black ancestry; non-hispanic blacks have somewhat shorter life expectancies). So whatever is driving this pattern, it doesn't seem like it should be hispanic immigration--they should be driving the life expectancy up, not down.

In general, life expectancy numbers look quite similar for non-hispanic whites and for the general American population--probably the blacks pull the average down, the hispanics and Asians pull it up, and the total effect is more-or-less a wash.

So, as best I can tell, the life expectancy numbers can't be explained away by our ethnic mix, mainly because hispanics and Asians do a little better than whites, blacks do a little worse, and the totals at least approximately balance out.

Mark said...

Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. have longer life expectancies than natives but the gap decreases among their children and grandchildren who have adopted a more American lifestyle. There is something unhealthy about that lifestyle. It could be that the stronger social bonds among immigrant families are important for health. It could be the native ethnic cuisine they eat may be healthier than the fast food we eat. It could be that they work jobs that require more physical exercise or come from a culture with more walking than car driving and continue that habit when they come here.

Canadian CIncinnatus said...

This graph is doubly misleading.

Firstly it is misleading because it doesn't weight the number of deaths in each age group. The deaths in the 70 and 80 year age group vastly outnumber the deaths in teenagers.

Secondly, it rates ranking of life expectancy. With a generally low death rate among young people, a small absolute change in the death rate can have a big change in the relative rankings.

What pushes down the life expectancy in the younger age cohorts are deaths by violence, an unlikely occurrence. The likely reason that the US rankings were low in the younger age groups is the homicide rate among the NAM's.

Which I suspect is the reason you brought the matter up.

Anonymous said...

"Our new friends from across the border and their, uh, plentiful spawn have lower life expectancy than whites."

No, the opposite is true, which is pretty strange given HBD and class assumptions. However, they do seem to suffer more late(r)-in-life ailments like diabetes and dementia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-cappello/hispanics-lifespan-aging-in-america_b_1933378.html

Anthony said...

It's also not a good country for young (under 55) men or women to get jobs anymore.

Revo Luzione said...

This explains why the dating and job markets are so ruthless here--and why they'll continue on that trend until some major social change upends things.

The underlying biomechanical interactions of genotypes and phenotypes has an innate intelligence, and can sense and respond to environmental conditions. This is intermediate biology, really. Thusly,the dating and job markets respond efficiently to the difficulty of living in America, so the search for optimal genes and resources for mating hits a fever pitch.

Anonymous said...

Are we living in a democracy or a correctocracy?

DR said...

@Paul Mendez

"And why are they so peaceful in Guam?"

Polynesians are a peaceful people, unlike their Melanesian cousins. Honolulu has the lowest murder rate of any major American city.

DR said...

"It could be the native ethnic cuisine they eat may be healthier than the fast food we eat."

European diets are much too bland. First the presence of spicy food is good for health by itself, it lowers cortisol, increases positive neuro-transmitters and increases the body's metabolic rate through thermogenesis.

Second the more spicy food you eat the more you substitute away from high-fat starches. The non-spify cuisines tend to very heavy on potatoes, white breads, butter and cream. All very bad.

Whereas spicy seasoning enhances the taste of lean proteins, whole wheats and fibrous vegetables. Some whole wheat tortillas, spinach, and cheap pork normally is pretty unappetizing. Smother it with hot sauce, spices and seasonings and it's all of a sudden delicious.

Truth said...

"Did you know that if you are 114 years old you have one of the highest life expectancies in the world?"

Technically, you have one of the lowest.

Anonymous said...

OT:
Over 50 of the 300 Intel student talent search semifinalists are from here on Long Island (a pretty amazing statistic, I'd say). Here are the names of the Long Island semifinalists, with my best guess as to ethnicity (EA = East Asian, J = Jewish, SA = South Asian) -

Arshia Aalami (SA)
Puja Bansal (SA)
Nicasia Beebe-Wang (Hapa?)
Arielle Chapin (J)
Andrew Chen (EA)
Deriam Chirinos (Greek?)
Wesley Cox
Yonatan David (J)
Menglu Dong (EA)
Drew Feldman (J)
Nick Fiacco
Rohan Goyal (SA)
Nakul Gupta (SA)
Kavita Jain (SA)
Tammy Jin (EA)
Sonia Joshi (SA?)
Jayson Kay (J?)
David Kim (EA)
Jonathan Kim (EA)
Minah Kim (EA)
Meenakshi Krishna (SA)
Arvind Kumar (SA)
Samuel Lam (EA)
Ethan Levine (J)
Brendan Liu (EA)
Michelle Jiang Long (Hapa?)
Prady Manepalli (SA)
Phoebe McAuliffe
Emma McNamara
Rebecca Monastero
Kenan Mutlu (African?)
Abhinav Patil (SA)
Benjamin Pleat (J?)
Joshua Pollock (J)
James Shamul (J?)
Michael Shen (EA)
Alain Sherman
Sanjula Singhal (SA)
Avagiel Sosnowik (J)
Nicholas Spiezio
Mayuri Sridhar (SA)
Robert Tannenbaum (J)
Alexandra Tse (EA)
Corey Wald (J?)
Anson Wang (EA)
Jacob Wax (J)
Raymond Wu (EA)
Michael Zhang (EA)
Gloria Zheng (EA)
Sunny Zheng (EA)
Cyrus Zhou (EA)
Julia Zhuang (EA)

Peter

Anonymous said...

It's easy to extend life expectancy for codgers if you keep the poor blighters on life support for weeks or months, in pain, or vegged-out. What you, or at least I, want is a good quality of life in old age, followed by a swift, unterrifying, painless death. In other words: no heroics, please, and plenty of morphine.

In other words, a Libertarian or pagan death.

Anonymous said...

Most states have kid's care programs and Obama recently forced insurance companies to have insurance covered for 26 year old. I think the government does more for the young than the eldery a lot of Mediocre patients have to pay high out of pocket costs and deductions until they reach the level where they don't have too. Too much health care whether its in the States or Europe povides better for kids than Adults.

Anonymous said...

I mean Medocare. Let's face it in your 20's unless you have an illness that can kill you or ou get hit by a care you don't need health care as much at 26 years old than 56 years old. The system now favors 26 years old since they can piggbank in their parents insurance and if you uninsurance at 56 who cares.

Anonymous said...

As for low birth, most Americans and even illegal immirgants qualify for the WIC program maybe some of the Red States cut WIC but its available. In the States its mainly blacks and some whites that have problem with low birth rates. As stated I use to work indirectly for Medco and Kids got a lot better deal on insurance than Seniors since Medocare has a lot of out of pocket costs and deductions.

Anonymous said...


Over 50 of the 300 Intel student talent search semifinalists are from here on Long Island (a pretty amazing statistic, I'd say). Here are the names of the Long Island semifinalists, with my best guess as to ethnicity (EA = East Asian, J = Jewish, SA = South Asian) -


But just think how much better off their home countries are without them.

Truth said...

"OT:
Over 50 of the 300 Intel student talent search semifinalists are from here on Long Island (a pretty amazing statistic, I'd say). Here are the names of the Long Island semifinalists, with my best guess as to ethnicity (EA = East Asian, J = Jewish, SA = South Asian)"

-Dude, I don't care! It's still anti-white RAYSIZUM that puts so many of them in the Ivy league. Hell, all the hell they do is study hard, get excellent grades and test scores and load up on extracurricular activitIes, and charity work... WE NEED TO GET RID OF ALL OF THOSE UNCLE TIMS IN ADMISSIONS!

Anonymous said...

I wonder if this is a statistical anomaly due to something like WWII. Maybe older Americans should rank lower if you could factor in only lifestyle-induced influences. Or maybe Europeans rank lower on the upper end because in Europe your life expectancy at 80 is low due to the higher chances of being administered a lethal overdose in a medical facility.

Anonymous said...

Semi-OT: The US is not only less healthy, it is getting less free.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/09/world-freedom-index-2013_n_2440620.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009#slide=1963175


http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/ch3-an-index-of-freedom-in-the-world.pdf

Anonymous said...

Isn't your own personal longevity one of the few things in the world you can really have an influence on? I have (had?) twin uncles. One died at 61. The other is still going strong at 87. My late uncle smoked heavily all his life, drank a lot and didn't eat a healthy diet. His twin is the exact opposite. Never smoke or drank and has always taken care of himself.

Anonymous said...

Pat, he isn't even testing us at this point. He's been doing this long enough that he knows we know the explanation. It's more of "here's another example of the media Just Not Getting It".

Hedder said...

Hard to draw much, other than illegal immigration and the welfare state are screwing up the country. The elderly are a snapshot of America of yore, which was ~90% white, whereas modern American children are ~50% NAM, who have lower life expectancies.

Figgy said...

Mortality rates are widely different by state. Rates in the "Canadian Border" states are as good as any country on the planet I believe. The southern states' expectancy something like 6 or 7 years shorter. So if we cut out the deep south, we'd probably be right at the top. Diet in the lower extremes has a lot to do with it I would imagine.