Politicians live significantly longer than the population they represent. This is demonstrated by a study published in the “European Journal of Epidemiology” by British and Australian researchers who analyzed data from more than 57,000 politicians from eleven countries, including Austria.
As a result, in the early 20th century, politicians still had death rates similar to the general population. Since then, however, the differences have increased significantly.
Indication of growing inequality
The background to the work is the fact that life expectancy in many high-income countries has stopped improving in recent years and has actually declined in the poorest sections of the population. This is attributed to growing inequalities, exacerbated, for example, by the CoV pandemic. The question is whether certain high-status professions, such as politicians, are associated with better health and therefore longer life expectancy.
Dates partially from 1816
The researchers led by Philip Clarke, from the Center for Research in Health Economics at the University of Oxford, used data from 57,561 MPs from Australia, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, the USA and Austria, that is, high-income countries, analyzed. Data were available for all states for the period between 1945 and 2014, but for individual countries also for much longer periods, for example for France from 1816 to 2016. The proportion of women ranged from three percent (France and USA) to 21 percent (Germany). From Austria, data from 2,664 parliamentarians (16% women) from the period 1918-2017 were included.
Developed separately in the 20th century
The analysis showed that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, politicians in almost all countries had death rates similar to those of the general population. But over the course of the 20th century, the differences across countries widened significantly. The result of this development: “Politicians have an increasing survival advantage over the general population,” the researchers write.
In Austria, the biggest differences were therefore in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, the difference has narrowed again. According to the authors, significantly longer life expectancy is partially, but not exclusively, related to higher income.