The rumors surrounding Hillary Clinton’s health won’t stop, Walmart bought Jet.com, and Finnish baby boxes are saving lives. ICYMI, learn about all that and more this Monday with Law Street’s best of the week!

1. Clinton’s Pneumonia: A Post-Speech Scare, a Body Double, and a Tame Trump

The facts are thin, and the story even thinner: Hillary Clinton has pneumonia. That’s pretty much it. But of course, that raises some very intriguing questions–especially if you’re a conspiracy theorist: Has she been harboring the disease, shielding her failing health from the media since she was Secretary of State? Did she contract it while delivering a contracted speech to Goldman Sachs? And given the very fact that Clinton has spent her entire career tag teaming with a body double–in speeches, in meetings with now-deposed Middle East dictators, at a dinner date with Bill–has she already moved on from not only this election season, but this life? Read the full article here.

2. What Walmart’s Purchase of Jet.com Says About the Retail Industry

In August, Walmart purchased the online-only retail website Jet.com for $3 billion. Before the sale, Jet.com forecasted that it would be losing money until at least 2020, as it attempts to establish itself prior to becoming profitable. That raises the question of why the world’s largest retailer, with an online presence of its own, would decide to buy a fledgling retail site that didn’t plan on making money for several years. Read on to find the answer to that question and how it is influenced by the changing retail marketplace, where online presence is more important than brick and mortar stores and is necessary to compete against online behemoths like Amazon and Alibaba. Read the full article here.

3. Thinking Inside the Box: How Finland Makes Parents and Babies Happy and Healthy

Washington, D.C. has the highest infant mortality risk of all the world’s high-income capitals–7.9 deaths for every 1,000 births. But the infant mortality rate in Finland is much lower, and one of the reasons for this is the simple but effective Finnish baby box. All new parents in Finland are eligible to receive a box from the government to help them through the early stages of their child’s birth. Inside the box, there are essential items for raising an infant such as clothes and, because it is Finland, a snowsuit. The box itself doubles as a crib, reducing the risk of accidental death during sleep. Read the full article here.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Washington, D.C. has the highest infant mortality risk of all the world’s high-income capitals–7.9 deaths for every 1,000 births. But the infant mortality rate in Finland is much lower, and one of the reasons for this is the simple but effective Finnish baby box. All new parents in Finland are eligible to receive a box from the government to help them through the early stages of their child’s birth. Inside the box, there are essential items for raising an infant such as clothes and, because it is Finland, a snowsuit. The box itself doubles as a crib, reducing the risk of accidental death during sleep.

Countries all over the world are now emulating Finland’s baby box idea, which has been around for decades. One such imitation, the “Barakat Bundle,” hopes to encourage women to make prenatal visits while providing them with the essentials to raise a healthy infant, thereby reducing both maternal deaths and infant mortality. The Barakat Bundle, although inspired by the Finnish baby box, is geared more to the needs of mothers and infants in Southeast Asia. For example, it includes medical supplies, such as a clean delivery kit for children born at home.

Today this practice is so culturally engrained in Finland that it continues largely without comment. Parents there overwhelmingly opt in favor of the baby-box, even well-off parents, and it has become a shared part of the Finnish identity. But when this idea is discussed in the United States it seems controversial; the ultimate symbol of the dreaded “nanny state.” Is the baby box an adorably autocratic threat to personal liberty?

Unboxing the Box

The first step to answering that question is to look at how the baby box actually works. This tradition dates back to 1938 when Finland was much poorer than it is now and had an infant mortality rate of 65 out of 1,000 births. The rate now is 2.52 out of every 1,000 births, an improvement that is certainly not entirely due to the baby box. But the rate is half that of infant mortality in the United States, so the baby box may be a significant factor. From the start of the program until 1949, the box was only available to low-income families. But starting in 1949 the box became available to everyone. This may help account for the program’s success, much like the way the inclusion of everyone in Social Security–not as a hand-out but as something you pay into and therefore “deserve” to benefit from–helped to sell the idea to the American people.

There have been other changes over the years as well, some of which are designed to encourage certain parenting behaviors. For example, formula and bottles are deliberately not included any longer, which promotes breastfeeding. Boxes also contain cloth diapers, rather than disposable ones, for environmental reasons. There are also condoms in the box, which would probably disconcert a more conservative American audience. The clothes in the box are gender neutral, designs change yearly, and as you would expect, are extremely adorable. And practical. So much so that 95 percent of Finnish mothers choose the box–including mothers who already have children–even though you can opt for a cash payout instead. In fact, those who don’t live in Finland can purchase a version of the box from several companies, such as Finnish Baby Box. You can watch parents opening the box on YouTube if you are curious about the contents.

This brief video does a good job of summarizing some of the key elements to the baby box.

There’s also a requirement that women have to have at least one prenatal visit, before they are four months pregnant, to be eligible to receive one. The Barakat Bundle requires a pre-natal visit as well, which they anticipate will reduce maternal deaths.

The simple genius of the baby box is not just that the contents of the box are useful tools for parents, but the box itself. In fact, this simple cardboard box may be the main reason why the program has reduced infant mortality. The box comes with a mattress and is specifically designed to provide the optimum sleeping environment for an infant to avoid SIDS or cot death. The U.K. has taken heed and is launching a pilot program to give out baby boxes to mothers in hopes of reducing its relatively high infant mortality rate. A similar program is happening in Texas, sponsored by a local Rotary Club, which will give out 100 boxes to new mothers.

This video explains some of the benefits of the baby box to help babies sleep safely.

And this one shows how some of the new mothers and babies react to the baby box.

Who knew that the safest place to put a baby was in a cardboard box?

State Sponsored Shower

In the videos and examples above, hospitals and altruistic private organizations take it upon themselves to invest in these boxes and distribute them to new mothers. Why doesn’t the state government step in to do this too, if baby boxes are so effective?

Finns don’t quite see it this way but many Americans view the baby box, and other similar handouts, as antithetical to the values of freedom. It does seem a bit odd, if you think about it, that all the babies born in the same year receive the same outfits. And that parents are steered toward certain behaviors, such as breastfeeding, by a “benevolent” government entity when they might want to make other choices. Americans have a deep-seated wariness of large government, as well as a love for it, that pushes them away from embracing these kinds of policies. Finland gives away 40,000 of these boxes every year…but that’s just in a country the size of Finland. The level of bureaucracy that it would take to accomplish the same task of giving every mother a baby box in the United States would be staggering, and to many, terrifying. And to be perfectly blunt about it, expensive.

The American Approach

Americans have an alternative approach, which is the tradition of the baby shower. Rather than have the state or federal government welcome your baby into the world with a box of essentials, American parents often received personalized and eclectic gifts from friends and loved ones. This seems more in keeping with our love of diversity and our individual uniqueness. Baby showers are in fact a great way to ensure that you have the tools you need to survive the first months of parenthood.

It is the families who do not get the shower experience, however, that should be the concern. If you don’t need a baby box because you have a network of family support and the financial means to collect those items yourself, the baby box idea is still helpful but it provides more of a convenience and a sense of community rather than a financial benefit. Even the wealthy Finnish mothers typically choose the baby box in part because it isn’t about the box. It is what the box represents, that you and your new child are part of a community that cares about you and investing in your child’s future. Getting the box is part of being Finnish. For a family who needs the baby box, it is also about being part of a community that cares about you, but also also about the very practical reality that unless you get the box your baby will not have access to many of the items inside it.

The baby box, therefore, shows the fault-lines in our political thought. Giving away a baby box to every family, ensuring that all children start out with as equal a chance as we can give them, speaks powerfully to our egalitarian values. After all, one of the things Americans are most proud of about our society is our belief that the United States is the most egalitarian society on earth. Everyone has a chance to succeed. Our greatest political turmoil often results from the perception that we are losing that egalitarian character in our society.

It’s the giving away portion that gives us pause. Americans are wary of government overreach. We like our charity to be a private affair, run by altruistic individuals and faith communities, not the government. And our individualism resists anything that seems like a state uniform–no matter how adorable.

Support for the baby box, therefore, turns on whether you see it as a giveaway from the nanny state to parents who should be taking responsibility themselves or whether you characterize it as an investment by society into these newborns. It all comes down to responsibility and who should have it. In Finland, they have answered that question. Finns feel that society as a whole ultimately shares responsibility for, and therefore investment in, its children. In the United States, our paradoxical character makes the answer more mixed.

Conclusion

The baby shower doesn’t do anything to help the family that needs the baby box. If you had the kind of family support that baby showers represent you wouldn’t need the box. Placing the responsibility to provide these kinds of tools solely on the baby shower emphasizes for new parents who don’t have the same blessings that they are on their own. Sharing that responsibility across society with the baby box does the opposite. It provides tangible benefits but it also sends a clear message that this baby is part of our community. Part of our future. And that we all, together, share in the investment into that future. The parents are the MVPs, but everyone is on the team.

Resources

The Washington Post: Why Babies Should Sleep in Cardboard Boxes

Barakat Bundle: About

BBC: Why Finnish Babies Sleep in Cardboard Boxes

The New York Times: Why Finland’s Babies Sleep in Cardboard Cribs

Daily Mail UK: New Mothers Given Finnish Style Baby Boxes

Today: Thinking Outside The Box: Finnish Baby Kits Could Save Infant Lives

Goodreads: The Nordic Theory of Everything

The Atlantic.com: Finland’s Baby Box: Gift From Santa or Socialist Hell? 

Goodreads: Liberty and Coercion 

Goodreads: The Politicians And The Egalitarians

Mary Kate Leahy

Mary Kate Leahy (@marykate_leahy) has a J.D. from William and Mary and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Manhattanville College. She is also a proud graduate of Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart. She enjoys spending her time with her kuvasz, Finn, and tackling a never-ending list of projects. Contact Mary Kate at staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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Studying life expectancy allows us to understand what factors help people live longer and how changes in conditions affect people’s lives. Recent research shows how life expectancy varies among different groups of Americans, sparking some important questions about future policy decisions. While life expectancy has increased overall over the past several decades, those gains tend to vary widely among certain groups. This research has implications on a range of issues from public health and inequality to Social Security. 

Read on to find out more about the current U.S. life expectancy, how it has changed over time, and how American lifespans compare to those of people in other countries, particularly other advanced nations.

How long do People Live?

The most common way to measure how long people live on average is through life expectancy, which is the amount of time in years a newborn baby is likely to live based on current conditions and health trends. The average life expectancy at birth for Americans as of 2014 was 79.68 years, meaning a child born in 2014 in the United States could be expected to live to that age. While this provides a baseline, the numbers can be further divided among a variety of demographics, which tell a more in-depth story.

Life expectancies tend to vary among different groups, particularly when categorized by race, sex, and income levels. In the case of race, there is a wide disparity between black and white Americans. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2009 found that the average life expectancy for black Americans was 75 years old, which was the same as it was for white Americans back in 1979. According to the CDC, the reasons for this disparity are higher rates of cancer, diabetes, homicide, heart disease, and perinatal conditions. Racial disparities are considerably larger when you further divide by education. Some of the largest gaps in life expectancy exist between white Americans with more than 16 years of education and black Americans with fewer than 12. One dynamic keeping this gap from becoming even larger is the much higher rate of suicide for whites.

Sex also plays a role in how long the average person can expect to live. In 2012, the average life expectancy for a male in the United States was 76.4 years and 81.2 years for women. This gap is not uncommon, however, as women tend to live longer than men for a number of reasons. One such reason is that women generally engage in less risky behavior and suffer fewer car accidents. These numbers hold even though more baby boys are actually born than baby girls, although that is mostly the result of female embryos having slightly higher rates of miscarriage than male embryos.

A third major factor that relates to life expectancy is income. In a recent study based on data from 2001 to 2014, researchers found that the average life expectancy for the richest men in the United States is approximately 87 years, which is about 15 years longer than the poorest. To put that in a clearer context, rich men in the United States live longer than men in any other country, while poor men live, on average, the same number of years as men in countries like Sudan and Pakistan. The numbers are similar among wealthy women who have an average life expectancy of 89 years old, 10 years longer than women in the lowest income group. Although researchers have not drawn a causal line between life expectancy and income to explain what drives this gap, a clear correlation exists between the two.

The accompanying video summarizes the study’s findings:

The numbers can also be parsed further. Although the rates for the richest men and women vary little depending upon the geographical area, the same is not true for the poor. On average, low-income people live shorter lives in the middle of the country compared to those who live in rich coastal cities. The study’s authors note that most of the geographical differences may be behavior-related and potentially explained by factors like rates of smoking and obesity. They also note that in wealthy cities with high levels of education and public spending, those at the bottom of the income scale tend to live longer than their counterparts in less affluent cities.

Changes in Life Expectancy

Life expectancy in the United States has changed dramatically over time. For example, in the 1930s, when Social Security was first introduced, the average man only lived to be 58 years old and the average woman 62 years old. Ironically, the retirement age for Social Security was set at 65. Another important consequence of the gap in life expectancy for the rich and poor is its effect on economic inequality and Social Security. As wealthy people live longer, they also receive more in Social Security benefits because they get additional payments over the course of their lives. Depending on how large the gap is, wealthy people may end up taking out a larger share of what they contributed relative to their income, which could reduce the progressivity of the Social Security program. This gap also has important consequences for the debate about retirement age, which many argue is necessary to keep the program funded as baby boomers retire.

While life expectancy has changed a lot over the past several decades, it has affected different groups in distinct ways. The clearest explanation comes in the same three characteristics mentioned earlier: sex, race, and income. In this instance, sex and race tend to blend together. Traditionally, white women have lived the longest, however, a recent study found that life expectancy for white women actually went down by a month. While this group still lives longest by far, the number has shrunk slightly due to a combination of factors, including rising suicide, drug overdose, and liver disease often caused by alcoholism. While white people, in general, suffer from these problems more than other groups, women have been particularly susceptible. This dip in life expectancy is actually the first one since totals have been calculated and happens at a time when other health concerns such as strokes and heart disease are causing fewer deaths.

The video below looks at this unexpected change:

While white women saw a reduction in life expectancy, several other groups saw an increase. Namely, black males and Hispanics of both sexes are expected to live longer. The third group, made up of white males and black females, saw no change in their life expectancy. Aside from sex and race, income level’s influence on life expectancy also changed. In the case of income, the richest people in America have gained three years in life expectancy from 2001-2014, while life expectancy for the poorest Americans did not change.

The United States Compared to the Rest of the World

Reliable data for life expectancy covers a relatively short time in history. In fact, for the United Kingdom, the country with the farthest reaching information, rates only go back to the 191h century. In the U.K., and virtually every other country, life expectancy was very short in the early 1800s, averaging between 30 and 40 years old; in South Korea and India, it was as low as 23. However, as healthcare and science improved, especially regarding infant mortality, life expectancy rose dramatically across the globe around the beginning of the 20th century.

This rapid improvement occurred in the United States as well, but the U.S. average of 79.68 years currently ranks 43rd relative to the rest of the world. Although countries with longer life expectancies may not be as large and diverse as the United States, it is important to ask why–for such a rich country–the U.S. life expectancy is relatively low, particularly compared to other developed nations.

The answer, according to the CDC, is threefold: drug overdose, gun violence, and car crashes. These three categories lead to injuries that account for roughly half of the deaths for men and a fifth for women in the United States. Americans, on average, live two years fewer than people in similarly developed countries. The effects of these, particularly drug overdoses, have been most acutely felt among middle-aged white Americans. Another important factor that contributes to America’s lower life expectancy is smoking tobacco. Many people in the United States started smoking earlier and in larger numbers than in other places.

Another major factor affecting life expectancy and keeping the United States behind other developed countries is the infant mortality rate. The infant mortality rate “compares the number of deaths of infants under one-year-old in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year.” The infant mortality rate for the United States is 5.87. Although that is historically low, it is less impressive compared to other countries–the United States has the 167th highest rate out of 224 countries, and is a far cry from most other developed nations that average between two and four. Like life expectancy in general, infant mortality rates are also affected by things such as race and income with more affluent and white babies at a much lower risk of death than lower-income and black babies.

Conclusion

There is no conclusive way to say exactly how long a person will live, but life expectancy provides an effective measure to see how certain factors contribute to longevity. In the United States, these numbers have been broken down further to take into account the differences across a wide range of demographics. In general, the most recent data was positive, with groups either staying where they are or seeing life expectancy gains, except for a few cases. However, even these modest gains still leave the United States behind many other developed nations. The reasons for this shortcoming are manifold, ranging from high infant mortality rates to smoking tobacco. Regardless of the results, though, life expectancy can provide people with a good baseline for how long they might live and what factors contribute to longevity.

Resources

The World Bank: Life Expectancy at Birth

Infoplease: Life Expectancy for Countries, 2015

The Journal of the American Medical Association: The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014

Social Security Administration: Life Expectancy for Social Security

The Washington Post: The Stunning–and Expanding–Gap in Life Expectancy Between the Rich and Poor

CNN: White Women’s Life Expectancy Shrinks a Bit

NPR: Life Expectancy Drops For White Women, Increases For Black Men

CNN: Why Americans Don’t Live as Long as Europeans

Population Reference Bureau: Smoking-Related Deaths Keep U.S. Life Expectancy Below Other wealthy Countries

Central Intelligence Agency: World Factbook

Our World in Data: Life Expectancy

USA Today: Life Expectancy in the USA Hits a Record High

Population Education: Why Are More Baby Boys Born Than Girls

USA Today: Infant Mortality Rates hits Record Low, Although Racial Disparities Persist

Business Insider: Huge Racial Gap in Life Expectancy

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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