RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Increased mortality of white Americans and a decline in the health of cohorts born after World War II
JF Journal of Human Resources
JO J Hum Resour
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 0620-10973R3
DO 10.3368/jhr.0620-10973R3
A1 Reynolds, Nicholas
YR 2024
UL http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2024/09/03/jhr.0620-10973R3.abstract
AB I show evidence that recent increases in mortality of white Americans are rooted in a decline in the health of cohorts born after World War II, relative to the prior trend. I identify the role of cohort health by imposing the impact of age on mortality to follow the log-linear, Gompertz form. Log mortality rates in every year between 1985 and 2015 exhibit slope changes centered at the 1946 cohort for white men and the 1949 cohort for white women, consistent with a health decline beginning precisely with those cohorts. Evidence of the cohort health decline predates the opioid epidemic.