American women may be making strides in shattering the glass ceiling of the executive office and making it clear that sexual harassment is not OK. But in one very significant — perhaps the most important — aspect of their lives, they’re falling short.
According to a report by the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College, life expectancy for women in the U.S. has stalled, leaving American females at the bottom of the list of the wealthiest nations.
“While U.S. life expectancy is now the lowest among … high-income nations, the discrepancy is especially stark for women,” said the CRR. In 1960, American women were likely to be among the longest-living females in the world. But that trend reversed itself in the 1980s, and today their life expectancy lags two-and-a-half years behind women in other developed nations.
The CRR had another surprising finding. Even though women have had, and still do have, longer life spans than men, that gap is narrowing. It’s now is only four to five years, compared to the nine or 10 years for previous generations.