Middle-aged white Americans without college degrees are dying at higher and higher rates, with drugs, alcohol, and suicide driving a dramatic increase in mortality.
The increase is happening even as mortality decreases for similar age groups across the developed world — and for black and Latino Americans, and whites with college degrees.
The data, outlined in a new paper by economists Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, shows death patterns for American whites sharply diverging from peers in Western Europe — particularly in what they dub "deaths of despair," involving drugs and suicide.
BuzzFeed summarises the mentioned paper
When you're seeking to escape from your own civilization through mind-altering substances, there's a problem of which the effects of the escape attempts are merely symptoms.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I read about this yesterday. Very depressing. This is my age group they're talking about here. I can understand the despair. Aging is not going to be as comfortable for us as it was for our parents. We're in big trouble. Lucky for me, I don't demand much from life, I'm not materialistic, I have very little debt, I have a great marriage, and I don't have kids to fret about (that last one doesn't feel very "lucky" to me, but at least I don't have that extra worry). For those who expected more from life, it must be a lot harder.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Very detailed report on the opoid epidemic, here. Makes for depressing reading...
ReplyDelete