We propose a preliminary but plausible story in which cumulative disadvantage over life, in the labor market, in marriage and child outcomes, and in health, is triggered by progressively worsening labor market opportunities at the time of entry for whites with low levels of education.In discussing the Case/Deaton study, Linette Lopez cites Emile Durkheim who studied the upheavals of industrialization at the end of the 19th century.
Durkheim found that the degree to which a person is integrated in society is inversely correlated to their likelihood to engage in life-threatening behaviors and suicide.
One of the big factors ... in the increase in substance abuse and suicide among the white middle class could be a decline in the social framework as a result of the rapid economic changes seen over the last few decades.
Anomic suicide is associated with one's expectations for oneself in modern society. This could explain why white middle-class Americans are taking the decline in their economic fortunes harder than their minority cohorts: In the old economic order, it was more or less understood that members of the white working class could, through hard work, attain a good life with a stable, high-paying job.And Rachel Leah points out that "right-to-work" laws and the "gig" economy aren't about to bring back those middle-class jobs.
For low-income workers across this country desperate work, the choices are whether [to] deal with horrific conditions in nonunion shops in the south or the horrors of freelance labor everywhere else.Update (September 6, 2018): Nicole Karlis describes a paper published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
According to the study, there is an alarming link between an increase in "despair deaths" – a term which describes deaths caused by drug overdoses, alcohol or suicide – and counties that voted [Republican]. In other words, those who have been left behind — the ones who voted for [von Clownstick], because they presumably thought his presidency would improve their quality of life — are enduring higher despair death rates.Update (November 29, 2018): CDC reports that U.S. life expectancy is down again in 2017 and suicide rates are still increasing.
Update (December 8, 2018): Sando Galea argues suicides and overdoses don't "just happen"--there's an underlying cause for shorter life expectancy.
The reason is that we do not actually invest in health. We invest in health care. The vast majority of our health spending goes to doctors, medicines and cutting-edge treatments that help us when we are sick. Far less goes to the social, economic and environmental factors that determine whether or not we get sick in the first place. These factors are shaped by a network of policies and institutions that promote health by providing basic public goods. These goods include clean air and water, safe neighborhoods, high-quality public education, and a fair economy. Without these goods, we cannot be healthy.Update (May 1, 2019): It's a sad comment on our world when suicide attempts by young people have increased by 200 percent or more over the past few years.
[R]esearchers believe that the dramatic increase likely has much to do with the rise of smartphones and social media, and the profound shifts in how teenagers spend their time and connect with others day-to-day.Update (December 30, 2019): A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at 112 manufacturing counties from 1999 to 2016.
Researchers found that in [the 29] counties where automotive assembly plants had closed five years earlier, opioid deaths were about 85 percent higher among people between the ages of 16 and 65 compared to counties where such plants remained open.Update (January 12, 2020): More people are drinking themselves to death.
Researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism analyzed the death certificates of Americans ages 16 and up between 1999 and 2017. And while 35,914 deaths were alcohol-related in 1999, that number doubled to reach 72,558 in 2017. The death rate spiked 50.9% from 16.9 to 25.5 per 100,000.David Rosen argues there's a growing crisis that's being ignored.
[S]imply keeping up with the demands of daily life, including the welter of political issues ... can be overwhelming and lead to despair, even depression. And so, we live from day to day, from year to year. And the troubling existential questions persist and, for many, get worse.
Update (May 22, 2021): A study published in BMJ Open finds that
suicide, alcohol-related diseases and accidental drug overdoses were the main factors driving a year-to-year drop in average life expectancy between 2015 and 2017 in the United States.
Co-author Danny George:
My personal view is that despair-related illness reflects a failure of capitalism and the consequences of a political class that has served the needs of the elite while largely abandoning the working class.
