Something that I found particularly interesting in our
lecture on Wednesday were the graphs depicting the life expectancy of people
over 50 depending on their birth months. According to the graphs. People born in the
spring tend to live slightly shorter lives than people born in other months. The
graph depicted similar curves for people living in the UK and Sweden, and an
opposite curve for people living in Australia, as it is in the southern
hemisphere. When I first looked at this graph, I thought that it could be
another example of correlation, rather than causation. However, our discussion
in class made me think otherwise, though I we still do not know why life
expectancy and birth month are connected.
I would have been interested to see data from other
countries, as the UK, Sweden, and Australia all have long life expectancies
compared to the rest of the world, according to the CIA World Factbook (If you
don’t already know about it, the CIA World Factbook is a really interesting
resource to explore if you have extra time. It gives descriptions of and ranks
every country on hundreds of different factors such as life expectancy, GDP,
quality of life, etc.). I wonder if the same holds true for people living in
countries that have shorter life expectancies. I also wonder if the curve evens
out for people living in countries closer to the equator, as many seasonal
factors may be eliminated.
This topic also ties in with our discussion both in lecture
and in recitation about why movements are not started by certain groups of
people who tend to have shorter life expectancies than others, such as men and people
who are left-handed. Like men and people who write with their left hands,
people born in the spring are not generally disadvantaged or discriminated
against for their trait that is connected with a shorter life expectancy. Without
this, movements have not been organized to fight for the rights of these
demographics and thus, there is nothing to raise awareness about differences in
life expectancy. I also think that because the differences in life expectancy
between men and women, right handers and left handers, and people born in the
spring rather than the winter is minimal enough that people would rather focus
on issues that are more pressing.
What's great about this post is that it ties seasonal life expectancy back into something we studied previously, which is the riddle that we were posed on the first day of class about why we care about certain inequalities in life expectancy and not others.
ReplyDeletePersonally I had problems with the graphs depicting seasonal life expectancy. The graphs were showing that the disparity in life expectancy was something like a third of a month, in other words ten days. Even though this could be considered statistically significant, I just had a hard time understanding what the big deal was, which I think might be an expansion of Kate's point about why we care about some inequalities and not others. Perhaps not just because seasonal life expectancy, handedness, and men are not perceived as socially disadvantaged or discriminated against, but that in some cases the difference is not detectable by the casual observer.