The less education a person has, says a new study, the more likely it is their lifespan will be anachronistically short. (Wee Jin/Flickr Creative Commons)
Your parents told you staying in school would lead to success – what they may not have told you is it can lead to a longer life.
A new study appearing in Health Affairs finds that Americans who have less than a high school education have life expectancies more similar to those living a half century ago.
That is, their lifespans are more along the lines of what was common in the 1960s and 1970s, not after the turn of the new millennium.
"The most highly educated white men live about 14 years longer than the least educated black men," said S. Jay Olshansky, the lead author of the study, in a statement. "The least educated black women live about 10 years less than the most educated white women."
Olshansky also said that folks with the least amount of education "are living in a time warp": Black men in 1954, black women in 1962, white women in 1964 and white men in 1972.
That's why Olshanksy says "there are essentially two Americas."
South Los Angeles isn't aligned with the better America – according to the Los Angeles Times Mapping L.A. project, the vast majority (more than 200,000) of southside residents 25 and older have less than a high school education.
Only 8.2 percent have a four-year degree.
Photo by Wee Jin via Flickr Creative Commons.
