Politicians in wealthy countries like Germany live longer than the rest of the population, with a difference in life expectancy of up to seven years. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has significantly reduced life expectancy in many countries, including Germany, scientists at the University of Oxford have investigated whether health and life expectancy are higher in certain elite professions, such as politics. Their study, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, analyzed historical mortality data from 1816 to 2017, covering 57,500 politicians from Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. The study shows that politicians have a significantly higher life expectancy than the general population, making it the most extensive analysis of its kind to date.
The researchers compared the number of deaths among politicians with the average population mortality rate. Previous studies have only examined mortality rates between politicians and the population of individual nations. The study found that the difference in life expectancy between a politician and the general population is highest in the US, at seven years. Other countries, such as the Netherlands, have a difference of four years. The researchers suggest that better treatment options for health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, which are more common among politicians, may be responsible for their longer life expectancy.
The study also found that higher incomes are not the main reason for politicians’ longer life expectancy. Income disparities between politicians and the general population only began to widen significantly in the 1980s, while differences in life expectancy were already apparent in the 1940s. The researchers suggest that better healthcare and treatment options for politicians’ typical health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, may be responsible for their longer life expectancy. For example, the availability of blood pressure-lowering medications since the 1960s may have contributed to the longer lives of politicians such as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, who both suffered from high blood pressure and died of a stroke in old age.
