Deaths of despair in America

Economists Angus Deaton and his wife, Anne Case, are authors of a study showing the increase in the rate suicide, and also of other “deaths of despair,” among middle-aged white Americans.

The mystery is why there’s no such trend among black and Hispanic Americans, or among Europeans, even though many of them are struggling economically as much or more than white Anglo Americans.

Deaton and Case, in an interview shown in the video above, saw the rising suicide rate as a failure of social and spiritual bonds, and not just a failure of public policy.

They speculated that some white Americans are failed by their religion.  He said many evangelical churches downplay social support because they believe salvation is an individual relationship with God.

I think this is a stretch, and they don’t provide any evidence for this.   My impression—admittedly based on limited experience—is that strict conservative churches provide at least as strong social support as mainstream churches.

The isolated ones would be the ones who think they don’t need a church community because they have an individual relationship with God.   This was true of J.D. Vance’s troubled family, which he described in Hillbilly Elegy.  When trouble comes, his family didn’t have any support system beyond each other.

Of course, all other things being equal, unbelievers suffer just as much or more from lack of a church community.

I think we white Anglo Americans are brought up to think that society is basically fair and that anything that happens to us is our own fault.   We’re taught to keep trying despite setbacks, and not to give up.  This is good—up to a point.

My guess is that black and Hispanic people on average are more aware that life is unfair and that they don’t invest so much of their self-esteem in being breadwinners.

My other guess is that life is more meaningful to those who join in solidarity with others to fight for change.

In an interview linked below, Deaton said the problem is not economic inequality as such.   It is fairness, he said.  It is not unjust for someone to get rich by creating something of value.   What matters is how you get rich.

He said the problem is that so many of the economic elite get rich through what he called “rent seeking”—extracting money from people without contributing anything of value.  The health insurance industry is an example of this.

Monopoly or “oligopoly” (control by a small number of firms) are a big part of the problem, he said.  Lack of competition results in lower inflation-adjusted wages, higher prices, fewer jobs and slower productivity growth.   Self-described progressives and conservatives ought be able to in fighting monopoly.

LINK

Angus Deaton on the Under-Discussed Driver of Inequality in America: “It’s Easier for Rent-Seekers to Affect Policy Here Than in Much of Europe”, an interview for Pro-Market, the blog of the Stigler Center of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century by Anne Case and Angus Deaton for the Brookings Institution (2017).   This is their most recent study of “deaths of despair.”

What is killing middle-aged white men? Despair

We take it for granted that, in scientifically advanced countries, the death rate will decline.  But since 1999, there has been a dramatic increase in the death rate among non-Hispanic American white men aged 45 to 54, especially those without education beyond high school.

No such increase occurs among middle-aged white people in other countries or among other American ethnic groups.  Although the death rate for African-Americans is higher, it is not increasing, and, as the chart shows, the death rate for middle-aged Hispanic Americans (USH) is decreasing.

A Princeton University study indicates that the main reasons for the increased death rate are an increase in alcohol-related disease (liver disease), in drug overdoses (heroin and opioids) and in suicide—all diseases associated with depression and despair.

[Note added 11/13/2015: Some experts say the increase is primarily among middle-aged white women.]

How white people can stay in the majority

The U.S. Census Bureau projects that non-Hispanic whites, now a majority of the U.S. population, will become a minority within the next 40 years.  I don’t think this will happen.  White people will remain in the majority the way they have down through American history, by continually expanding the boundaries of “white.”

In the years immediately following the American Revolution, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were the majority of American citizens, and Irish and German immigrants were minority groups.  African slaves and American Indians were excluded from citizenship, and did not even have that status.  Americans and English were considered the two branches of the “Anglo-Saxon race.”

By the time I was born in 1936, the white Protestant majority had dropped the “Anglo-Saxon” part, and defined Negroes, Jews and Catholics as minority groups.  I was taught as a boy that I should not be prejudiced against any of those three groups.

George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak Co., would not knowingly hire an Italian-American, which is why so many Italian-Americans in Rochester, NY, have British last names.  As recently as 1960, there was uncertainty over whether a Catholic could or should be elected President of the United States.  Now Jews and Catholics are included in the “non-Hispanic white” majority.

I predict that by 2050, the majority group will be broader still.  Instead of the majority being defined as “non-Hispanic white,” it will be simply “white.”  It will include all the white Hispanics and all the people of mixed race who consider themselves white.

The U.S. Census defines four broad racial groups, whites, blacks, native Americans and Asians.  Hispanics can be of any race, and more than half of all Hispanic Americans identify themselves as “white” on the census.  Hispanics once were defined as people with Spanish last names.  Now they are defined as people whose forebears came from a Spanish-speaking country, such as Mexico or Cuba, or from Puerto Rico.  I know people who are immigrants from Spain.  It would be absurd to consider them other than white.

In the days of slavery and segregation, a person with one known black ancestor was considered black.  That included mulattoes, with one white parent; quadroons, with three white grandparents; or octoroons, with seven white great-grandparents.  I don’t think that is true now, and I think it will be less true in the future.  People of mixed heritage will be able to choose which heritage, if any, is their primary identity.

Finally I think prejudice against people of Asian ancestry has disappeared, or greatly diminished, since I was young, and Asians will be assimilated to the majority group or closely allied with it.

Mixed marriages, especially between Asian-Americans and whites, and between Hispanic Americans and non-Hispanic whites, are on the increase.  My guess is that most of their children will identify with the majority group, whether it is called “white” or something else.

Some black people glumly predict that by the end of the century, there will be only two racial groups in the United States—blacks and everybody else—since white Americans have always come to accept members of every other ethnic group except African Americans.

This is highly possible, but not certain.  During my lifetime, I’ve seen more progress than I ever expected toward a society in which people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.  Given the ethnic conflicts and massacres in much of the world—Africa, southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent—and the racial tensions even in European countries, I think we Americans have much to be proud of.  We’re not where we should be, but we’re on a good road, and I believe we can stay on it.

Click on Adjusting to the ‘Browning’ of America for thoughts of Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page.

We whites need not fear minority status

Source: Pew Research Center

Less than 50 percent of babies being born in the United States are non-Hispanic whites.  The Census Bureau reported that for the 12 months ending in July 2011, non-Hispanic whites were 49.6 percent of American newborns.  All the rest were Hispanic, black, Asian, native American, and mixed race.

The Census Bureau projects that by the year 2050, non-Hispanic whites will be less than half the U.S. population.  They already are a minority in Hawaii (23 percent), the District of Columbia (35 percent), California and New Mexico (40 percent) and Texas (45 percent), and in many large American cities.

While the percentage of African-Americans in the U.S. population will remain constant, the percentages of Hispanics, already the largest U.S. minority group, and of Asians will double.

Source: William H. Frey, Brookings Institution

Is this something we non-Hispanic whites should worry about?  I don’t think so.  We won’t be in the majority, but we’ll still be the largest group, double the size of the Hispanic population.

I don’t see any reason to fear  Hispanics are going to join with other demographic groups to gang up on us.  I’ve visited non-Hispanic white friends in places such as Santa Fe and San Antonio where the Hispanics were in the majority, and they didn’t feel as if they under siege.  Quite the contrary.

During my lifetime, I’ve seen a great diminution of racial prejudice and ethnic antagonism, and I hope and believe this will continue.  And to the extent that prejudice and antagonism remain, it is just as intense between the various minority groups than between any of those groups and non-Hispanic whites.

Click on Minority births outnumbered whites for the first time for information from the Los Angeles Times.

Click on Racial, Ethnic Shifts in Metro Areas for information from The Society Pages.

Click on The New Metro Minority Map: Regional Shifts in Hispanics, Asians and Blacks from Census 2010. for information from Sabrina Pacifica’s beSpacific web log.

Click on Young Hispanic population key to futures of Texas and U.S. for information from the Texas on the Potomac web log.