Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:52 am Post subject: Life expectancy among the rich is soaring |
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Age shall not wither them, nor their wealth
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Life expectancy among the rich is soaring, which is bad news for the rest of the population
Earlier this year, Westminster Primary Care Trust surveyed life expectancy in central London. The borough is the most socially divided in Europe. On the one hand, it includes Knightsbridge and Belgravia, some of the most expensive plots of land on the planet, and the villas around the canals of Little Venice, which aren't noticeably cheaper. On the other, it has estates such as Church Street for the white working-class and immigrants who arrive at Victoria Coach Station on the cheapest available tickets from Europe.
The trust was 'startled' by its 'striking findings'. On average, rich women aged 65 in Little Venice can now expect to live until they're nearly 96. By contrast, 65-year-old women on the Churchill Gardens estate can expect to live until they're 77. Westminster men will die slightly younger, but the differences in life expectancy between rich and poor are almost identical.
Danny Dorling, a social analyst from Leeds University, said the Westminster figures were without precedent. The rich have always lived longer than the poor. But when you used to read statistics showing that a child born to wealthy parents lived, say, 10 years longer than a child born to working-class parents, the figures were averaged out over lifetimes. They reflected the deaths of poor children in infancy and of poor young men from drug or alcohol abuse. Now, researchers are finding huge divergences in life expectancy, not from the baseline of birth, but of retirement at 65.
'The only other place in the West you can find anything like what is happening in London is Manhattan,' Dorling said. |
To read full article, click on the link at the top. |
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