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IN STATS: Life expectancy gap grows in Sweden

The Local Sweden
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IN STATS: Life expectancy gap grows in Sweden
Sweden's national statistics agency has examined life expectancy. Photo: Hasse Holmberg/TT

Your level of education – and whether you're single or 'sambo' – is one of the factors that may determine how long you've got left to live, according to these stats. Are you brave enough to read this article?

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Sweden's national number-crunching agency Statistics Sweden has examined remaining life expectancy for various groups of the Swedish population. Here's what they found.

A 30-year-old woman who had not gone on to study beyond the first nine compulsory years in the Swedish school system had on average 51 years left to live, based on last year's figures.

A man in the same situation had on average 48.3 years left of his life.

Women and men who went on to study for another three years at Sweden's upper secondary level (gymnasiet) had a remaining life expectancy of 54.5 respectively 51.5 years.

And in the group of people who also went on to higher education after secondary school the corresponding figures were even higher: 57.0 years for women and 54.3 years for men.

The gap between the top and the bottom groups has increased by almost a whole year compared to 2012.

"Between 2012 and 2017, remaining life expectancy at 30 years increased most in the group with post-secondary education. This increase was slightly less among those with a secondary education and least among those with compulsory education," wrote Statistics Sweden.

"The trend of growing gaps between groups with different education levels looks set to continue."

Your household situation also affects your life expectancy, according to Statistics Sweden. At 65 years of age, it said people in a co-habiting relationship ('sambo') were likely to live longer than singles.

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Anonymous 2018/10/10 08:11
Why does Sweden not take statistics on ethnic background?

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