A booming economy leads to more deaths among middle-aged and older people than a recession-hit economy, according to a major study published today.
The findings are perplexing as economic recession is often linked to high rates of suicide and mental despair.
One possibility is that economic prosperity is linked to high rates of stress and accidents.
But, the trend is unlikely to be explained fully by this, suggest the authors from the Leyden Academy and Leiden University in The Netherlands.
Writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, lead author Herbert Rolden says they wanted to establish if the increase in the number of elderly people and booming economy are linked.
Analysing the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of 19 developed countries in Europe, Scandinavia, North America and Australasia between 1950 and 2008, they plotted the GDP figures against the numbers of deaths among 40 to 44-year-olds and 70 to 74-year-olds over the same period.
Over the long term, an increase in GDP was associated with a fall in death rates in all countries studied.
The authors found that on average, for every 1 percentage point increase in GDP, death rates among men rose by 0.36% among 70-74-year-olds, and by 0.38% among 40-44-year-olds.
Among women, there was a rise by 0.18% among those in their 70s, and by 0.16% among those in their 40s.
Unhealthy lifestyles and road traffic accidents increase when economies are in good health, but are unlikely to fully explain the trends, while a rise in job stress would not affect older people. Increased air pollution, which increases when economies thrive, does not explain the gender differences in the figures.
However, the authors say that changes in social support may exert some influence because higher employment could mean less time for informal care-giving to older people, and heightened stress among the carers, a factor that is worth exploring further in view of the lack of evidence to substantiate this theory.
“The counter-intuitive association between macroeconomic cycles and cyclical variation in mortality needs further explanation,” they write.
Rolden H, Van Bodgeom D et al. Old age mortality and macroeconomic cycles. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 7 October 2013. doi 10.1136/jech-2013-202544. [abstract]
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