ANNE CASE & ANGUS DEATON
In prosperous western societies, lives have been steadily lengthening for as long as anyone can remember. In the United States, for example, the last material dip was a century ago, with the Spanish flu that followed the First World War. Progress sometimes slowed—for example, as the epidemic of early 20th century tobacco smoking took its toll—but it never went into reverse. At least, not until very recently.
US national life expectancy actually fell in three straight years, from 2014-5 to 2016-7. Drilling into the data, we have pinpointed why. This is not a population-wide phenomenon. College graduates are not dying any younger. Nor are African Americans. In America’s racialised society, they continue to die several years earlier, but there is progress and the race gap is narrowing.