It also has a geographic component. Women in Appalachia, the Cotton Belt, the Ozarks, and the Great Plains have shown the most significant decrease in life expectancy, while the trend is not nearly as strong in the Northeast and Southwest.
Unfortunately, scientists remain at a loss to explain the pattern. One of the lead researchers on the University of Wisconsin study tells Wyler, "Clearly something is going. It could be cultural, political, or environmental, but the truth is we really don't know the answer."
However, a study from Harvard University published this May examined why white women without high school diplomas were dying sooner, and indicated that "having a job mattered, and it mattered more than income or other signs financial stability, like homeownership," writes Monica Potts at The American Prospect. "In fact, smoking and employment were the only two factors of any significance."
Still, it is unclear what specifically about having a job correlated to a longer life span. As Potts discusses, considering unemployment as a factor in the life expectancy of these women raises a lot of questions:
Would any job do? Why would joblessness hit white women harder than other groups? Overall, men lost more jobs during the Great Recession. Why are women losing years at a faster rate? [The American Prospect]
At the same time, while men without high school degrees may have lost more jobs, half of them are in the workforce, compared to just one third of their female counterparts. Even worse, for women in the region hit hardest by the decrease in life expectancy — the rural South — they may be pressured to provide the entirety of financial and emotional support for their families.
Traditional familial demands combined with the modern expectations of breadwinning may be taking its toll on the health of these women. Ironically, these rural and poorer regions in the South "often wants to remain unchanged from the 1950s ad 1960s," writes Potts. Now, as a result, "their women are now dying as if they lived in that era, too."
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