Data in Action: Candidate Origins of the Recent Stagnation in Midlife Mortality in the United States
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Data in Action: Candidate Origins of the Recent Stagnation in Midlife Mortality in the United States
July 15, 2025
Presenter:
Sam Arenberg, University of Houston
This paper offers a new explanation for the alarming trend in midlife mortality observed in the United States since 2000, when death rates among working-age Americans stalled after decades of unprecedented progress. The explanation hinges on a striking parallel with a pattern that emerged just before 1950, in which death rates among children also stalled, ending a period of similarly historic gains. We will show that sustained reductions in both midlife and early-life mortality rates ceased abruptly with the same birth cohort. The implication, backed by empirical and theoretical literature connecting adulthood health to childhood circumstances, is that the recent stagnation may not be a new phenomenon, but the second manifestation of an older one. Supporting this hypothesis, we will find similar trends in midlife mortality in, and only in, peer countries where there was also a stagnation in early-life mortality decades prior, namely in other Anglo countries. We will also demonstrate that the slowdown in childhood has the capacity to be, not just a cause, but the primary cause of the slowdown in adulthood.
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Bio:
Samuel W. Arenberg, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the University of Houston. He holds a joint appointment between the Hobby School of Public Affairs and the Department of Economics. Arenberg is a Presidential Frontier Faculty member focusing on public health and health policy. Prior to joining UH in the fall of 2023, Arenberg was a postdoctoral fellow in Aging and Health at the National Bureau of Economic Research where he studied the stark and growing geographic inequality in mortality observed in the United States over the last century. His work going forward is focused on the recent stagnation in life expectancy in the U.S. Additionally, Arenberg has worked on the long-run health and economic impacts of access to healthcare and exposure to environmental harms. Broadly, the Alabama native is interested in why people in certain places or at certain times live longer than others. His work is published in peer-reviewed journals ranging from American Economic Journal: Applied Economics to Demography. Arenberg earned his Doctorate in Economics from The University of Texas at Austin and his Master of Economics from The London School of Economics and Political Science. |