A booming economy leads to more deaths among middle-aged and older adults than during recessions, though reasons for this trend remain unknown.
Not all good has come from the end of recession and the boom in economy. According to a recent report, more deaths among middle-aged and older adults have been associated with a booming economy than during recessions. Previous speculations suggested that more stress and traffic due to employment could be the reason for the increase of death rates. However, researchers of a new study found that this is not true.
"Life expectancy in the developed world has continued to rise, largely because of the reduction in old age mortality," revealed the authors. "Long term economic growth is an important factor in maintaining this trend, because 'wealth creates health'."
Considering most countries are still in recession and the older population in these countries has increased, researchers conducted a study to find out how this trend would affect life expectancy. Therefore, they analysed the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of 19 developed countries in Europe, Scandinavia, North America and Australasia between 1950 and 2008. During the study period, researchers noted an increase in GDP was linked to lower death rates but the economic cycles of relative boom told a different story.
Researchers found that as the economies of these countries rose, the death rate among middle aged and older adults also rose. The death rate decreased as the countries headed towards recession.
Statistically, every one percent rise in GDP resulted in a 0.36 percent rise in death rates of older adults (70-74 years) and a 0.38 percent rise among middle aged adults (40-44 years). The numbers were little lower for women though, rising by 0.18% among those in their 70s, and by 0.16% among those in their 40s.
Two reasons why researchers can not hold stress and traffic (air pollution) responsible for this trend are because stress fails to explain the rise in death rates among older adults who are not employed and air pollution doesn't explain the statistical difference in the rise of death rates between both genders.
Researchers concluded that change in social support may be a factor influencing this trend as employment may leave less time for a person to visit doctors for regular checkups. However, further investigations need to be carried out to confirm this theory.
