A new study appears to confirm what many Canadians have suspected from anecdotal evidence for years.

Rich people live longer than poor people.

The report entitled “Rich Man, Poor Man: The Policy Implications of Canadians Living Longer” was published Thursday by the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based think tank.

Life expectancy is rising among people of all income levels in Canada. (youtube.com)

The study used figures from the Canada Pension Plan for Canadians born between 1923 and 1955 and is the first study of long-term changes in longevity across earnings groups in Canada

“This is a fundamental aspect of well-being,” Kevin Milligan, a fellow in residence at the institute, told CBC News.

“We talk about income inequality, but this is one of the most fundamental inequalities there is–how long you live, how many years you have with your family.”

The study found that men in the top 20 per cent of income earners have a life expectancy of 83 while the lowest income workers can expect to live to 75–a difference of eight years.

The gap for women was three years, with higher income women living on average to 86 while and poor women to 83.

Milligan told CBC News the authors could not point to any causal relationship between higher income and longer life because of variables in how lower and upper income people may have lived.

Those include different types of jobs, different education levels and lifestyle choices, such as smoking and diet.

The study found that life expectancy for Canadians continues to rise steadily.

On average, men now live 7.7 years longer than they did in 1965 while women live 6.4 years longer.

With files from CBC, C.D. Howe Institute