Current research into the relation between work and longevity describes an intricate web. “A constellation of work-related factors — whether you're employed, how secure you are in your job, how much you enjoy your work — may influence both your day-to-day health and how long you live,” writes Katherine Hobson in Newsday.

How much longer is a Connecticut resident likely to be around than someone who lives in Mississippi? Three full decades. That’s not the scariest statistic in the new Human Development Index report on well-being in the United States. The life expectancy gap between Asian-American males and black Americans in those states is a staggering 50 years.

Following up on an earlier post about the first-ever recorded drop in the lifespan of American women, I came across this piece by TechNewsWorld columnist Sonia Arrison. It’s hardly suprising that the biotech industry views this dismal demographic shift as just another market opportunity. But I was so horrified by the columnist’s position that I had to comment:

I’ve been chewing over lots of longevity-related statistics lately. Almost all chart seemingly inexorable progress: Americans have gained 30 additional years of life in the 20th century; 17% percent of that increase is above the age of 65; the old old (aged 85+) make up the fastest growing subset of that group.

So two groundbreaking studies reported earlier this week and headlining this Sunday’s New York Times’ Week in Review

Via the Ageism blog of the International Longevity Center, I just found out about a study debunking the myth that people grow more conservative with age. In fact, sociologists from the University of Vermont and Penn State found that the opinions of Americans veer increasingly leftward.

This week I went to West Chester, Pennsylvania, to interview Eddie Lewis, aka the Bald-Headed Buzzard. Bald he is, and extremely fond of the nickname he gave himself early in his career as a milkman; his first rounds were in his father’s horse-drawn wagon.

Is work what we do when we’d rather be doing something else? Is it what we do to make money? Is it what we say we do when we need to define ourselves to friends, or fill out forms, or elude or elicit questions? Is work a job? An identity?