Clergy
and religious like
Catholic priests and nuns or Protestant
pastors longer than members 
of other
professions, according to a Korean survey published this
week.
The findings tally
with a number of earlier surveys showing that religious people tend to have
better mental and physical health.
A paper published in 2009 by the Iona Institute and
written by Professor Patricia Casey drew on studies
showing that people who practiced their religion tended to have better
mental health outcomes than those who either had no religious faith or those who
said they didn’t practice any religion, but were
spiritual.
The Korean study,
which looked at 11 professional groups in South Korea, also found that media
professionals tend to be among those with the shortest life spans.
Kim Jong-in,
professor of health and welfare in Wonkwang University, announced the survey
result on Monday.
Kim’s team compared
and analysed the average life span of 11 professions in the country, based on
the statistics of mortality and the obituaries of 3,215 people for 48 years from
1963 to 2010.
His team categorized
them into 11 groups like clergy,
entertainers, politicians, professors, high-ranking officials, business people,
lawyers, artists, athletes, writers and media people.
According to the
result, the life span of clerics and religious was 80 years, the
highest-ranked profession, followed by politicians at 75, professors at 74, business people at 73, lawyers at 72, high-ranking officials at 71, entertainers and artists at 70 each, and athletes, writers and media people
at 67 respectively.
Kim found that they
lead a well-regulated life, have less stress caused by family ties, are
unselfish and many of them do not eat or drink to excess, nor
smoke.
He noted, however,
the gap of life span between religious people and other people has narrowed in
the last decade because modern people are getting more concerned about their
health as they become more affluent.
According to
Statistics Korea, South Korean men’s average life expectancy was 77 and women’s
was 83.8 in 2009.
