Top 20 percent of male earners live longer than bottom 20 percent

The gap in life expectancy among income level turned out wider than expected, with top 20 percent of male income earners living 9.1 years longer than the bottom 20 percent. High-income women also lived 3.6 years longer than their low income counterparts.

A research team led by the National Health Insurance and Professor Kang Young-ho of Seoul National University analyzed 1 million individuals representative of age, income and disease among 12 million health insurance subscribers from 2002 to 2010. The research team compared income with the remaining life expectancy with age 0 as base after deriving income statistics based on data for imposition of annual income, buildings, lands, home rental money and health insurance fee including automobile insurance fees.

According to the research team, the remaining life expectancy of the top income bracket among male health insurance subscribers is age 77, 4.4 years longer than the average life expectancy of 72.6 years.

The trend was the same with female population though with a smaller gap. The remaining life expectancy of top 20 percent female income earners was 82.6, 1.5 years longer than the average life expectancy of 91.1 years. The bottom 20 percent had a remaining life expectancy of 78.8 years, shorter by 2.3 years.

The fact that life expectancy gap is near 10 years between top and bottom income brackets shows the seriousness of medical care gap. Professor Kang said, "Typically, the average life expectancy gap between South and North Korean people is 12 years, and 4 or 6 years between U.S. black and white population. Given this data, we can see how serious health inequality is between wealthy and poor people in our country."

On the fact that the average remaining life expectancy of men (72.6 years) and women (81.1 years) has widened to 8.5 years, sociology professor Kim Jin-myung at Korea University said, "In Korea, the share of men who are the main breadwinner of their families is high. A study also shows men are more vulnerable to stress. In particular, the problem of low-income men cutting themselves off from family is severe, having a big impact on the gap in life expectancy based on gender and income."

Such a gap exists when comparing the types of subscription to health insurance. For men, the remaining life expectancy of those subscribed to paid workers health insurance was 74.8 years, 3 years longer than 71.8 of locally subscribed people. Work health insurance subscribers were receiving a stable wage whereas locally subscribed people including those engaged in agriculture and fisheries as well as the self-employed.

The problem is that the remaining life expectancy of men subscribed to medical care is 19.8 years shorter than employee insurance subscribers. The gap for women was 10.6 years, with 71.6 years for the former and 82.2 years for the latter. The remaining life expectancy of people subscribed to medical care in Korea was lower than North Korea`s average life expectancy (men`s 61.5 years and women`s 71.9 years).

Korea University`s medical college professor Yoon Seok-joon said, "Management of patients before they get serious disease has a big relationship with life expectancy. Since the latest research shows health inequality is worsening, special measures to resolve medical care gap should be derived."

Professor Kang said, "It is a serious problem that life expectancy gap is up to 20 years though medical care receivers get the same health insurance," adding, "This indirectly shows that the medical care gap is huge in since health insurance is not fully applied."