Individual and institutional versions of racism exist (though “structural” and “systematic” do not). An example of the institutional kind is Social Security, the forced retirement savings plan mandated by the US government:
- Suppose a black man and a white man start working at age 18, doing the same kind of work and earning the same amount of money.
- Their Social Security withholdings will be the same over the years.
- The average life expectancy of a black man in the USA is about five years less than that of a white man.
- So the average black man will get about five years less of Social Security payments.
- US government officials know this and have known this for decades.
So an institution knowingly administers a program that his a major cost/benefit difference between blacks and whites.
That doesn’t consider many other factors. Factors that must be studied for how they interact with life span (just off the top of my head) for correlation and causation include: 1) careers; 2) marriage & family situations; 3) comorbidities; 4) recent and medium-term trends.
As for trends, the black/white life span gap has been cut in half over the past three decades. There’s nothing nefariously “systemic” or “institutional” about it. If anything, the institutional part has been making great strides. For Social Security purposes, the male/female lifespan gap needs more immediate addressing. The older one gets, being married is an increasingly better indicator of life span than race. Per the 2020 Census (2nd link):
“Of the older adults living in the community, more than half (61%) of persons age 65 and older lived with their spouse (including partner) in 2020. Approximately 18 million or 73% of older men, and 15 million or 50% of older women, lived with their spouse. About 27% (14.7 million) of all older adults living in the community in 2020 lived alone (5 million men, 9.7 million women). They represented 20% of older men and 33% of
older women. The proportion living alone increases with advanced age for both men and women. Among women age 75 and older, for example, 42% lived alone.”
https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20211011/life-expectancy-gap-between-black-and-white-americans-diminishes-by-489
https://acl.gov/sites/default/files/Aging%20and%20Disability%20in%20America/2020ProfileOlderAmericans.Final_.pdf
Hi Bob:
The issue is not why the life-span gap exists; it’s why the institution does not take that into account despite knowing about it — to the detriment of the lower-lifespan group.
Best,
Studies that look at all the factors affecting one’s rate of return on Social Security contributions, including the level of earnings, years in the workforce, marital status, disabilty prevelance, life expectancy and so on, tend to find that Blacks earn a somewhat higher return than whites. Trying to explicitly account for the black vs white racial differential in setting benefit levels would be extremly difficult admnistratively — what about all the Americans who report being mixed race? What about rich Blacks vs poor whites? etc. But the system as a whole is not regressive with respect to race or income, and the system as a whole matters more than one component of it.
Thanks. Can you link to a good study showing that conclusion?
I appreciate your differentiating between individual and institutional versions of racism and “structural” and “systematic” racism. Thanks. That makes sense.
One thing that contributes to longevity is marital status. Married men live longer. I understand that, overall, marriage is declining, but it would be interesting to see how many black men are married vs. how many white men.
This issue of the nuclear family does tend to trigger some people as if it’s not a factor, but those are generally people who’ve never lived in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
Where did you get the life expectancy data from that says the difference is 5 years?
Here is a useful link: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR10-508.pdf