Once again, this is perhaps linked to the higher prevalence of severe diseases / co-morbidities predominantly affecting life expectancy amongst ethnic minorities.
In 2010 a government-commissioned review looking at the relationship between health and wealth – only the third officially sanctioned attempt to do so in 30 years – came to the conclusion that life expectancy is linked to social standing and so is the time spent in good health.
Bone et al. used multiple regression analysis with a range of factors for 115 locales in England and Wales to show that low healthy life expectancy was linked to areas of low social class, high employment, and low population density [ 15].
For example, little is known of the mechanism by which expectancies become linked to particular actions.
The hypothesis that the racial gap in life expectancy may be linked to the slave trades has been advanced by Cutler et al. (2005), who present evidence suggesting that racial differences in sensitivity to salt, a leading and largely hereditary cause of hypertension, may be due to selection during the Middle Passage.
Low life expectancy is a major issue, linked to high infant and adult mortality rates.
From 2020, both men and women's state pension age will be 66, increasing to 67 between 2026 and 2028, and then linked to life expectancy after that.
Inevitably, this suggests a multi-tiered pension system, with different options of retirement age and pension benefits linked to life expectancy and income.
Instead, pension benefits should be linked to life expectancy so that they are automatically reduced at current retirement ages as people live longer (see article).
First, because Americans live longer and healthier lives than a generation ago, the age of eligibility, which will rise to 67 in 2027, could be raised to 70 and be linked to life expectancy thereafter.
