The data shows that life expectancy has fallen sharply for less educated whites in the U.S., particularly for less educated white women:
The steepest declines were for white women without a high school diploma, who lost five years of life between 1990 and 2008, said S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the lead investigator on the study, published last month in Health Affairs. By 2008, life expectancy for black women without a high school diploma had surpassed that of white women of the same education level, the study found.
Over a short period of time (18 years), life expectancy for less educated white women fell by five years, at a time when it was rising for less educated members of other races:
Even the overall outcomes are not what you might expect. Yes, it's true that whites are still living longer than blacks. But whites are doing worse than Hispanics and a lot worse than Asians.
Here's the data for white women aged 25 to 54 (the lower the score the lower the death rate):
Asian women: 73
Hispanic women: 116
White women: 171
Black women: 276
And remember the rates are improving for all the races except for whites.
How does this reflect on our modern liberal order? Well, liberals would no doubt be happy that the gap between white and black mortality is closing. That fits well with the liberal programme.
But the rest of it doesn't. The gap between rich and poor is growing rather than closing when it comes to life expectancy, in spite of all the wealth transfers arranged by the welfare state. So the liberal programme has failed miserably in that respect.
Nor does feminism seem to have improved the lives of poor white women, or white women in the prime of their lives, as life expectancy has declined rapidly for these groups.
Nor does the data support the idea of whites as a privileged group. Once again it is Asians who do the best when it comes to life expectancy - by a large margin. And Hispanics are also doing considerably better than whites.
Which leaves the question of what has gone wrong for whites? The researchers don't claim to have an answer for the rapid decline of life expectancy amongst less educated white women. And it's difficult to explain this decline when less educated women of other races are improving their life expectancy.
Perhaps part of it is that numbers of women don't cope so well when left to raise families on their own. They would do better with a husband to support them. Sure they can be kept from absolute poverty with the support of the state, but the state isn't there to help them cope with everyday life.
It's possible too that people in this social class rely on a moral culture to help them make good life choices and so have suffered from this moral culture being run down by the Western elites since at least the 1960s. The elites are better at playing a game in which it's thought cool to endorse amoral behaviour whilst still keeping to a traditional morality in your own personal life.
Anglo-Feminism only cares about alpha females (and males) as manospherian blogger Roissy has written. Basically it only focuses on the needs of the UMC (e.g. Upper-Middle Class) and elite women. It doesn't care about middle-class and working class women. It doesn't care about society as a whole. Only strong independent career ambitious women (another plus if she's a minority woman) from the elite. That's it. In other words, the vast majority of women (aka beta and omega females) are ignored. Anglo-Feminism does benefit Miss Plain Jane or Miss Average (the rules, the generalities). It praises Ivy League Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton (the exceptions).
ReplyDeleteApologies. I meant that "Anglo-Feminism does not benefit Miss Plain Jane or Miss Average (the rules, the generalities)."
ReplyDeleteThe men and women either become too independent from each other (which is bad for community, friendships, family formation) or bitter enemies.
Steve Sailer suggested an interesting explanation of this trend. In 1990 there were still plenty of women who never graduated high school but were intelligent and quite capable of looking after themselves. My grandmothers, for instance, were farmer's wives and had not graduated from high school. But they were both intelligent, literate, and self-disciplined. The elderly cohort of today were high-school aged in the 1950s and 60s, when many more young people graduated from high school and those who didn't were much more likely to be unintelligent or to lack self-control. If this is correct, it is part of the general pattern that the quality of the working class declines in a meritocratic society.
ReplyDeleteOn the extended lifespan for Hispanics, it's four reasons:
ReplyDelete- Partly has to do with intimidation.
- Partly welfare.
- Partly culture (very happy!).
- Despite out-of-wedlock births from illegals and such people, only a fraction are single mothers (most of the kids live with a father and a mother) since the Catholic Church frowns on this.
Hispanics also go through the hardest labouring jobs.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Hispanics, Whites always have the "racist!" hammer over them, and are required to integrate, assimilate, accommodate and ultimately, inevitably intermarry. This implies genocide in the long run for all Whites, but in the short run, for Whites that can't price themselves out of Black company, it means assimilating to Black culture.
ReplyDeleteThe London riots, Black race riots that some Black-ified Whites joined in, illustrate one aspect of this.
The decline in life expectancy for the least educated Whites may be another aspect of this.
Great comment Daybreaker. I think the poorest whites in the USA will assimilate to Hispanic norms. Blacks are only 10-12% and Hispanics are a much larger block.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of life expectancy, and I suspect in a lot of other terms, it would be better for lower class Whites who've effectively been expelled from their own culture to assimilate to Hispanic rather than Black culture.
ReplyDeleteLanguage is a barrier. Also, the hegemonic mass media glamorizes and valorizes Black culture more strongly than it does Hispanic cultures. For people who don't read much, which the least educated Whites almost by definition are, non-text media are vital sources of received information and experience.
Thanks, Elizabeth Smith. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd, instead of "received information and experience" I meant to say "received information and influence.
Language is a barrier. Also, the hegemonic mass media glamorizes and valorizes Black culture more strongly than it does Hispanic cultures. For people who don't read much, which the least educated Whites almost by definition are, non-text media are vital sources of received information and experience.
ReplyDeleteGood point. But isn't there Spanish television and programs as well?