A comparison of life expectancy in France between those who make up the 5% with the lowest standard of living and those 5% with the highest shows a gap of 13 years among men and nine years among women, according to a study published this week by France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE).
The study defined the 5% with the lowest standard of living as those with a monthly disposable income of less than 497 euros, and the 5% with the highest standard of living as those with a monthly disposable income of 6,247 euros or more.
Concretely, men in the poorest of the two categories have an average life expectancy of 72 years, while the wealthiest have an average life expectancy of 85 years; women in the poorest group have an average life expectancy of 80.1 years, while the women in the wealthiest category have an average of 88.7 years.
INSEE found that the gap in life expectancy between the two groups had increased slightly in comparison with the period of 2012-2016. In the space of eight years, it rose among men from 12.7 years to 13, and among women, from 8.3 years to 8.6.
But the gap is not limited to the extreme ends of the scale. For the poorest 25% of the French population, life expectancy has declined over the eight years to 2024, while for the wealthiest it has grown.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
While the period 2020-2024 was of course marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, which reached its height over the years 2020 and 2021, the spread of the coronavirus cannot alone explain the life expectancy gap between rich and poor. However, the latter would be worst-hit by the epidemic, which could well have aggravated the pre-existing inequalities demonstrated in the 2012-2016 data. Low-income posts such as those among healthcare staff, shop staff, and delivery and transport workers, were far more exposed than others to the circulation of the virus, many filling the monthly disposable income bracket of 847-1,350 euros.
But it is established that standard of living has, for most people, a direct consequence on life expectancy, whereby widening income inequalities mechanically widen the life expectancy gap, and since the Covid pandemic receded, poverty climbed to new heights in France. The numbers of people living in poverty in France were featured in another INSEE study published in July this year, which detailed that in 2023 (the year of the latest available figures, “The poverty rate rose sharply (15.4% after 14.4% in 2022, or +0.9 points due to rounding) and reached its highest level since 1996, the year the [study] series began”.
“In 2023, 9.8 million people in ordinary housing in metropolitan France were living below the monetary poverty threshold,” it said
That study, which also examined the broad evolution of standards of living, also found that “The rise in financial income [in 2023] also supported the standard of living of the most affluent households, which rose sharply”.
These are the concrete effects of the policies of different French governments over the past 15 years, and also the direct result of the 2022-2023 inflation crisis which led to a fall in real wages, unprecedented among recent decades, and notably concerning those situated between the legally protected minimum wage and the median wage. That is the bracket in which many of those with the shortest life expectancy fall.
The rise in the prices of goods is among the mechanical drivers of the gap in standards of living because an increasing part of the income and savings of households is handed over to companies, notably the largest, increasing their profit margins. A percentage of these is redistributed in the form of dividends or hikes in salary for senior management.
Another is the spending on healthcare which, again over the past 15 years notably, has been well below what is required for a system strained by an ageing population and inflation. This “bean counting” approach to healthcare policymaking has destroyed the capacity of the French health service, especially regarding hospital care, to meet the demands it faces.
Added to this, "financial difficulties can limit access to healthcare”, underlines INSEE. “For example, 3.2% of people among the 20% [of the financially worst off among the population] declare that they did not undergo medical tests for financial reasons, as opposed to 1.8% of the whole of the population.”
With the failure, over each of the past 15 years, to meet the growing demands of the healthcare system the divide between available care and the demand upon it has become gigantic. There are solutions for the wealthiest, but not for those who are permanently struggling financially.
In France, a woman living with a disposable income of 6,247 euros or more will, on average, live 16 years and nine months longer than a than a man who has a monthly disposable income of 497 euros, reports INSEE. It also underlines that at the age of 50, a man among the latter category is seven times more likely to die than a man among the wealthiest category.
The issue of tackling this inequality is systematically left out of government agendas, and by placing it backstage it becomes subservient to other policies. When there is talk of reducing deficits, of putting order into public accounts, of the supposed attractivity of the country, and how the rich are leaving for another, one should always have in mind that this inequality is the human cost of policies in favour of capital.
The findings of the INSEE study throw light on the continuing debate over the reform of the retirement pension system in France, which raises the age of retirement on full pension rights, and which was introduced by decree by President Emmanuel Macron’s government in 2023 (and which is currently suspended on the demand of the Socialist Party in a deal with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to not vote down his draft budget legislation as it struggled through a hung parliament). The INSEE study demonstrates the cynicism of the argument put forward by the pro-reform camp, that “we must work longer because we live longer”. Given that life expectancy is shortest among the poorest, lengthening the age at which one can claim a pension is tantamount to them also paying for the pensions of the wealthiest.
Because the poorest die sooner, to make them work longer is to make them die on the job, and because the professions of the poorest are for the most part physically harder and more dangerous than others, their work also adds to the causes of an early death, which are in part the result of class politics.
In conclusion, the study exposes the other, dark side of the picture painted by the economic theories that shape public policymaking. The detailed injustice in life expectancy is not a theoretical issue; for those concerned, it is a daily tragedy that is the cost of a life of toil, a life sacrificed on the alter of those who profit from the system.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse