ABSTRACT
To more fully assess this trend, more recent mortality data needed to be analyzed. Subsequent research indeed confirms the narrowing of the gender gap in longevity (Montez and Zajacova 2013; Olshansky et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2013). Moreover, the greatest declines in life expectancy were found among non-Hispanic white women with less than a high school education. Jay Olshansky and his colleagues (2012) determined that longevity for low-educated white women fell five years between 1990 and 2008. White men without a high school education lost three years of life expectancy during this period. The result was that in 2008, white males who did not complete high school had a life expectancy equal to all men born in the United States in 1972 and their similarly low-educated white female counterparts had the life expectancy of all women born in 1964. College-educated black and Hispanic men and women lived longer than both their less-educated racial counterparts and less-educated whites, but the differences between whites were more extreme. Olshansky et al. (2012) point out that while the relationship between education and longevity is complicated by race, not having a college or postgraduate degree has a greater negative effect on life expectancy for whites than in the past. Those at the bottom of the class structure are experiencing either a decrease or a slow rate of increase in longevity relative to those at the top. White women in low-income, rural counties seem to be the most affected.
