College graduates live longer than those without a college degree and the racial wealth gap widens
If you follow the science then you will believe yet another study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a gap is growing in life expectancy between those with and those without a bachelor's degree. Researchers analyzed 48.9 million death certificate records spanning from 1990 to 2018 to calculate how many years a given 25-year-old could expect to live up until the age of 75. The researchers found that in 2018, American adults with a bachelor's degree could expect to live 48.2 years out of a possible 50, while those without a college degree could expect to live 45.1 years. The study stresses this is due in part by disparities in economic opportunity and a lack of well-paying and stable jobs for those without a bachelor's.
The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened conditions for workers without a college degree, who are more likely to work in-person and are more likely to face unsafe working conditions. Yet these workers have been deemed "heroes" and "essential workers." Gone are the good 'ole days of "good jobs" for those workers without a college diploma. Many of those jobs were lost to globalization and automation even before the pandemic. Today is the day of the "gig worker" who is employed hourly at a variety of jobs without employer-provided health care and unstable work. These factors contribute to the decline in adult life expectancy.
"Throughout all of recorded history in the U.S., Black people have more frequently died earlier and younger than whites — that remains true. But what has happened is the gaps by race have narrowed and the gaps by education have widened within both groups. Differences by race, which have been there forever, are still there, but they're becoming smaller than differences in education," the study asserts.
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