Mårten Palme on radio about widening life expectancy gap
The gap in life expectancy between rich and poor in Sweden has tripled since the 1960s. This is what Mårten Palme explained on Vetenskapsradion, where he discussed findings from a study published in PNAS earlier this year.
Photo: Johanna Säll/Stockholm University
In the program, Mårten Palme, professor of economics at Stockholm University, described how Sweden’s income distribution shifted from being quite unequal in the 1960s to much more equal by the early 1990s.
”But even during the period when income distribution became more equal, inequality in expected life expectancy grew much larger,” says Mårten Palme.
The study, covering data from 1962 to 2021, shows that the life expectancy gap between the highest and lowest income groups has tripled. For men, the difference increased from about 3.5 years to nearly eleven; for women, it rose from 3.8 to 8.6 years.
According to the researchers, the biggest increases have occurred in deaths before the age of 75 that could have been prevented through public health measures such as better diets, reduced smoking, and more physical activity.
Sweden’s public health goal is to eliminate preventable health inequalities by 2048.
”I think that will be very difficult, actually,” says Palme on Vetenskapsradion. “The trend is moving in the opposite direction.”
Listen to the program (in Swedish) and more about the study
