People’s economic situation affects their life expectancy. Poorer people generally die earlier than richer people. According to a study by the Robert Koch Institute, the gap has grown.
People from socially disadvantaged neighborhoods generally die earlier than people from affluent areas. According to a study, these differences have increased in recent decades. A team led by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported in the journal “The Lancet Public Health”that life expectancy increased slightly on average between 2003 and 2019. However, for people from poorer neighborhoods, it rose more slowly or even stagnated.
In 2003, the life expectancy of women from the most and least deprived areas still differed by 1.1 years. In 2019 it was already 1.8 years. The gap also grew for men – from a three-year difference in 2003 to 3.1 years in 2019.
Cancer, Heart disease and Covid-19 as driving factors
After 2019, the corona pandemic further aggravated the situation. In the following years, “the gap increased even faster to 2.2 years for women and 3.5 years for men in 2021,” says the study led by the RKI. In 2021, a man in a disadvantaged area died on average 3.5 years earlier than a man from a richer area.
The research team attributes the fundamental increase in inequality largely to developments in mortality from cardiovascular diseases and cancer, especially lung cancer. As a result, fewer people overall died of these diseases over time. However, mortality fell less among people from disadvantaged areas than among people from more affluent areas.
The researchers justify the increase during the corona pandemic by the fact that Covid-19 mortality was particularly high in socioeconomically disadvantaged regions.
Education and income as markers for Disadvantage
For the study, in which the Federal Institute for Population Research and the Hannover Medical School were also involved, data from all people living in Germany who died between the beginning of 2003 and the end of 2021 were examined. The data is based on information from the Federal Statistical Office.
In addition, the researchers used a data set developed at the RKI to record regional socioeconomic disadvantage. It provides information about educational qualifications, employment and income in various regions of Germany.