In the first episode of the Radio 4 programme about England’s North/South divide Danny Dorling put forward the interesting proposition that the marked difference in mortality – much higher in the north – would disappear if you could analyse the figures by place of birth, rather than place of residence at death.
This on the perhaps contentious grounds that those who have the skills & the get-up-and-go to make it into higher education & hence the better paid jobs & professions tend to migrate south – the gravitational pull of London is very strong.
I think there is quite a lot in this – without of course believing that those who stay put are just too thick & too stupid to follow the advice about lifestyle which would prolong their lives.
Was it Dr Johnson who said that, by moving to England, Scots managed the feat of thereby raising the average IQ in both countries?
But the Dorling hypothesis ought, in principle, to be testable by using the ONS 1% Longitudunal Study.
