It’s hard to argue with facts. The article below was written by Zachary Haston of Arlington Lodge #438 and published in the April 2025 Grand Secretary’s Communication.
Masons live longer. I don’t think that statement is going to come as a surprise to many of you, but I did think it was worth quantifying and contemplating a bit. I’ll start off by quantifying. Figure 1 shows the age at death for Texas Master Masons over the past 4 years (8529 known deaths that we have known birthdates for). The average age at their death was 82.8 years old.
Regarding the “longer” part of that initial statement, Table 1 compares life expectancies of Texas Masons with those of the general male population. Data are from National Vital Statistics Reports using 2021 data (the most recent they have right now) and from our 2021 to date data in Grandview. *Note – Texas Masonic law excludes anyone who died before age 18 which skews the Age 0 data point here, but the rest don’t have that issue.
As you can see in Table 1, at all point in life, Texas Master Masons live longer than the Texas male population. We have a large percentage of our men who join Masonry in their 30s and 40s, and those guys live several years longer than the general population. I can add to that that, racially, US American Indian men have a shorter life expectancy than Black males who have a shorter life expectancy than White males who have a shorter life expectancy than Hispanic males who have a shorter life expectancy than Asian males, but all those have a shorter life expectancy than Texas Master Masons. Race alone cannot explain the difference.
There are at least a few things that can help explain this. The first point that must be conceded is the correlation between income and life expectancy. Higher income yields more comfortable living conditions and better healthcare. Additionally, those with higher incomes tend to have a healthier lifestyle, and their rates of diabetes, heart disease, liver disease, and indeed most causes of death, are lower than those with lower incomes. Scarface aside, there just aren’t as many rich drunkards and druggies. Looking just at the income portion of this, a 2016 Harvard study found that US males making more than $130,000 per year have similar life expectancies to Texas Masons, and those making $200k, $400k or more per year actually have a higher life expectancy than Texas Master Masons. The life expectancy of US males making more than $500k per year is 87.3yrs old, notable higher than our average. So what portion of our increased life expectancy can be attributed to income? Well, I do not know as I don’t have data on our members’ incomes to answer that question, but if our average is say $100k, that would account for at least a year of greater life expectancy compared to the US average male. I cannot fully quantify how much our members’ incomes affect their life expectancy, but at least some portion of the increased lifespan is likely attributed to selecting those with higher incomes. Additionally, even if your income isn’t high, hanging around men who live a better lifestyle tends to make you live a better lifestyle, and Masonry is all about making good men better.
The next influence I’d like to point out is that numerous studies have found that membership in any in-person group (church groups, bowling/golf/etc teams, civic groups, and, yes, Masonry) after retirement age increases your life expectancy. For example, “If a person belonged to two groups before retirement, and kept these up over the following six years, their risk of death was 2%, rising to 5% if they gave up membership of one, and to 12% if they gave up membership of both.” (Membership of social/community groups after retirement linked to longer life, Science News). I do not have data to compare the life expectancy increase from membership in Masonry compared to other organizations, but it’s worth noting that the social aspect is important.
Similarly, retired married men’s death rates are half those of widowed men’s death rates (National Institute for Health data). At age 60, a US non-Hispanic White male has a life expectancy of 20.2 years compared to 9.5 years for a widowed husband. That is an enormous difference, and one which I believe our Fraternity helps to alleviate some. Again, I don’t have the data on how many and which of our members have lost their wives to confirm this hypothesis, but, again, it’s worth noting that the social aspects matter to life expectancy.
So, back to my opening statement: Masons live longer. The average Texas male has a life expectancy of 73yrs old. Our members live, on average, to 83. That’s a decade longer, and even if you exclude the younger deaths and look at people in their 30s and 40s, we still live several years longer. The reason is probably a combination of a number of things: yes, income, but also companionship, mental and social engagement. Netflix has a show on right now called “Join or Die,” which is mostly about social capital and the need for social organizations in our democracy, but it also points out that joining just one organization makes you less likely to die next year. It may be a combination of many factors from social benefits to better personal lifestyles to Divine guidance, but together the data shows that Texas Masons, at any given age, are less likely to die next year compared to the general public. – Zachary Haston
