Falling life expectancy in Canada

IF we told you that the United States was declining in rank in life expectancy among wealthy nations, would you be surprised?

You might attribute this to their poor governance leading to growing income and wealth inequality, indifference to citizens suffering housing and food insecurity, lack of unionized jobs and a health-care system in crisis.

You would shake your heads and thank the stars that you are living in Canada and not the U.S.

Not surprisingly, the United States does poorly in the “life expectancy Olympics,” attaining a rank in 2023 of 31st among 37 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development nations.

In 1990, it ranked 20th. The U.S. suffered a fall of 11 in rank from 1990 to 2023.

Now, what would you say if we told you that in 1990, Canada ranked fifth in life expectancy, and in 2023, it was ranked 22nd.

Canada experienced a 17-point decrease in rank.

And how would you respond to evidence that the reasons for Canada’s decline in rankings are the same reasons that had you shaking your heads about the U.S.: growing income and wealth inequality, indifference to citizens suffering housing and food insecurity, lack of unionized jobs and a health-care system in crisis.

Canada may be a good place to live.

But you will live fewer years in Canada than if you were living in Switzerland, Japan, Spain, Israel, Italy, Korea, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Australia, France, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Iceland, New Zealand, Slovenia, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark and Greece.

Admittedly, Canadian life expectancy in 2023 of 81.7 years is higher than it was in 1990 at 77.5 years, but for the last three of four years it has declined in absolute terms and is not keeping up with increases in all these other nations.

Life expectancy is a good indicator of the living and working conditions experienced within a nation.

These conditions are so strongly related to health that they have come to be known as “social determinants of health.” And all evidence is that these social determinants of health in Canada are declining in quality and in their equitable distribution.

And this is not because Canada has grown poorer. In terms of gross domestic product or the size of its economy, Canada has never been wealthier.

Inklings of these contradictions are seeping in Canadians’ consciousness as the income crisis, food crisis, housing crisis, employment crisis and health care crisis are converging into a polycrisis of interrelated problems.

The figures on food insecurity (17 per cent of all Canadians), poverty (14 per cent using the commonly used international measure), work precarity (greater than 33 per cent) and half of Canadians being $200 or less away from being able to pay bills and the growing privatization of our universal not-for-profit health care system, suggest something is very wrong with how our economic and political systems are distributing resources.

The solutions offered by Prime Minister Mark Carney of new industrial development, more oil pipelines and billions of dollars in purchases of warplanes and warships, are not going to solve the polycrisis. Blaming immigration levels and limiting immigration are not going to solve the polycrisis.

What will solve the polycrisis is Canadians asking these questions: In whose interests is the economy operating? Why do profits of wealthy corporations and the incomes of the wealthy continue to grow as wages of most Canadians fail to keep up with inflation?

And the final question that must be asked: What kind of economic system will meet the needs of most Canadians?

Because the current economic system is not doing so.

Dennis Raphael is a professor of health policy and management at York University in Toronto. Toba Bryant is an associate professor of health sciences at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa.