Sex Differences In Life Expectancy Research Articles

A divergent pattern of the sex difference in life expectancy: Sweden and Japan, early 1970s‐late 1990s

For most of the 20th century the sex gap in life expectancy in the industrialized countries has widened in favor of women. By the early 1980s a reversal in the long-term pattern of this differential had occurred in some countries, where it reached a maximum and thereafter followed a declining trend. Of particular interest to the present investigation is the anomalous experience of Japan, where unlike other high-income countries the female advantage in life expectancy has been expanding. We contrast the case of Japan with that of Sweden, where, like many other high-income nations, the sex differential in longevity has been narrowing in recent years. We observe that in Sweden, until the early 1980s, the sex gap in life expectancy (female-male) exceeded that of Japan; but this situation reversed in subsequent periods, when the Swedish differential narrowed and that of Japan widened. A decomposition analysis indicates that these divergent patterns since 1980 have resulted mainly from larger than expected reductions in male mortality in Sweden due to heart disease and from accidents and violence, lung cancer and "other" cancers. In Japan, death rates for men and women from heart disease--which is a leading cause of death--have tended to decline more or less at the same pace since the early 1980s; and with regard to lung cancer, and "other" neoplasms, male death rates in Japan have been rising while those of women have either declined or risen more slowly. Moreover, during the 1990s, male and female suicide rates rose in Japan, but the rates for men went up faster. Altogether, the net effect of these divergent mortality trends for men and women in Japan underlie much of the observed widening of its sex differential in longevity in recent years.

Inequalities in health: the value of sex-related indicators.

My laboratory has previously shown that the sex differences in tumor incidence in Europe can be related to the female social condition and that the pattern of this relationship varies according to the different historical contexts. In this article, I have extended the study worldwide to all cancer registries, and I present the sex differences in life expectancy at birth. A close link between the health of the populations and socioeconomic and cultural factors was confirmed. The sex-related indicators had a distribution independent from the parent variables cancer incidence and life expectancy; thus, they carry complementary information and provide an additional, sensitive probe for monitoring the health of the populations.

Narrowing sex differences in life expectancy: regional variations, 1971-1991

A number of industrialized nations have recently experienced some degrees of constriction in their long-standing sex differentials in life expectancy at birth. In this study we examine this phenomenon in the context of Canada’s regions between 1971 and 1991: Atlantic (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island); Quebec, Ontario, and the West (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories). Decomposition analysis based on multiple decrement life tables is applied to address three questions: (1) Are there regional differentials in the degree of narrowing in the sex gap in life expectancy? (2) What is the relative contribution of major causes of death to observed sex differences in average length of life within and across regions? (3) How do the contributions of cause-of-death components vary across regions to either widen or narrow the sex gap in survival? It is shown that the magnitude of the sex gap is not uniform across the regions, though the differences are not large. The most important contributors to a narrowing of the sex gap in life expectancy are heart disease and external types of mortality (i.e., accidents, violence, and suicide), followed by lung cancer and other types of chronic conditions. In substantive terms these results indicate that over time men have been making sufficient gains in these causes of death as to narrow some of the gender gap in overall survival. Regions show similarity in these effects.

Assessing the contribution of age-sex differentials in causes of death due to infectious and parasitic diseases to the trends in age-sex differentials in life expectancy in Mauritius.

This study applies two methodologies to Mauritian life tables and cause-of-death data: (1) the decomposition of sex differentials in life expectancy using Arriaga's approach and (2) the estimation of the effect of marginal reduction in deaths from infectious and parasitic diseases on life expectancy using Keyfitz's methodology on cause-specific entropy and that of Nanjo. The findings in this paper support earlier findings about the importance of the period 1969-1976 in the mortality transition in Mauritius, a period in which sex differentials in life expectancies reached a peak level. The results suggest that the driving force behind those sex differentials in life expectancy was the sex differential in mortality in infectious and parasitic diseases, first among the young (ages below 10 years) and second among the older population (ages above 50 years). If the decline in mortality due to infectious and parasitic diseases was differentially greater in the older ages compared to the younger ages, that difference would have gone a long way toward reducing the magnitude of the historic peak sex differential in life expectancy achieved in 1976.

Contribution of cause-specific mortality to changing sex differences in life expectancy: seven nations case study.

During the last two decades some industrialized nations witnessed varying degrees of constriction in their sex gaps in overall life expectancy. We investigate this development by paying particular attention to the contributions of major causes of death to the change in the difference between 1970 and 1990. The analysis is based on the experiences of seven nations: Australia, United States, Sweden, England and Wales, Portugal, Hungary, and Japan. In the first four countries the gap has been narrowing during the last twenty years; in Hungary and Japan, the difference remains substantial and continues to expand; in Portugal the situation is characterized by a slowdown in the amount by which the sex gap is expanding over time. We apply decomposition analysis to answer the following questions: (1) What is the relative contribution of major causes of death to sex differences in average length of life within broad age categories? (2) How do the contributions of age and cause of death vary across time to either widen or narrow the sex gap in survival? (3) How do the patterns of cause contribution vary across societies?

2. Sex Difference in Life Expectancy at Birth(The First Meeting of Kanto and Tohoku Regions,Regional Meetings)

2. Sex Difference in Life Expectancy at Birth(The First Meeting of Kanto and Tohoku Regions,Regional Meetings)

Changing sex differences in life expectancy in Australia between 1970 and 1990

"In this study we decompose the gender based survival difference [in Australia] in 1970, 1980 and 1990 into components that can be attributed to different causes of death. Our analysis indicates that a significant component of the constriction in the differential was due to males having made larger gains than females over time with respect to heart disease, accidents and violence excluding suicide, and lung cancer.... We discuss [the] findings in the context of emerging epidemiological trends in the industrialized world, and the implications these have for the future of the sex differential in survival."

Smoking. The contribution of smoking to sex differences in life expectancy

Several studies have shown that smoking is a major cause of the lower life expectancy of men compared to women, but there has been no research to assess how far international differences in sex differences in life expectancy and changes in these differences can be accounted for by smoking. This paper gives quantitative estimates of the effects of smoking on sex differences in life expectancy at age 35 years in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands during 1970–1989. The data on cause-specific mortality by age and sex were obtained from standardized computer-tape transcripts of the WHO mortality data bank. An indirect method based on lung cancer mortality as the indicator of the cumulative effects of smoking was used to estimate the numbers of smoking-attributable deaths in 4 periods. The validity of the method was assessed by comparing the relevant parts of the results with those obtained in 8 national follow-up studies. On average, 2.4 years or more than 40% of the total sex difference in life expectancy in 1970–1974 was estimated to be attributable to smoking in the 5 countries. By 1985–1989 the contribution of smoking dropped to 1.8 years or approximately 30% of the total difference. The contribution of smoking to the sex difference was greatest in The Netherlands and smallest In Sweden. As a result of the decline in smoking-attributable male mortality, the sex difference in life expectancy diminished in Finland In the 1980s. In the other countries the difference continued to grow despite the increase in the loss of female life expectancy caused by smoking.

Narrowing sex differentials in life expectancy in the industrialized world: early 1970's to early 1990's.

Between the early 1970's and 1990's, twelve industrialized nations experienced for the first time a narrowing of their sex differences in life expectancy at age zero. In another set of countries, the differential has not yet reached a stage of convergence, although in some of these nations the female advantage appears to be increasing at a slower pace than ever before. We discuss the demographic and epidemiologic conditions for this new and largely unanticipated trend, as well as its applied and theoretical implications in the context of the following questions: (1) Is the observed change a function of males' faster pace of gains in life expectancy since the early 1970s? (2) What is the relationship between country differences in socioeconomic development (as measured by GNP) and the degree of convergence in the sex gap in average length of life? (3) What is the degree of association between temporal change in age-sex specific death rates and change in the sex gap in life expectancy over the twenty-year interval between the early 1970s and early 1990s? Our results indicate that where some convergence has taken place, in relation to women, men have experienced more rapid gains in survival; the higher a nation's level of social and economic development, the greater the amount of convergence in male and female life expectancies. The most pronounced age-specific association with the changing sex gap in longevity is that of ages 25-59, where the greater reductions in male mortality, as compared to that for females, contributed to a significant portion of the observed convergence in life expectancy across industrialized nations.

Sex differential in life expectancy at birth in Japan: (2) trends in sex differential in life expectancy at birth from 1920 to 1990

Sex differentials in life expectancy at birth in Japan are analyzed for the period 1920 to 1990. The results show that there was a general increase in differences in mortality by sex over time. "The sex differential in age-specific death rate in 0-4 year age group (particularly age 0) explained most of the sex differential in life expectancy at birth before 1947. After 1950, the age group of 60-79 played a major role in the sex differential in life expectancy at birth. It is noteworthy that female mortality exceeded male mortality in age groups of 2-41 before 1930. Consequently, excess of female mortality reduced the sex differential in life expectancy at birth at that period. As for the sex differential in mortality rates by causes of death, tuberculosis, pregnancy and childbirth related disease exerted a great influence...before 1940. Recently, malignant neoplasms, heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, and accidents [have] become leading contributors to the sex differentials in life expectancy at birth." (SUMMARY IN ENG)

The Narrowing Sex Differential in Mortality in Canada Since 1971

In this study we confine our observations to Canada and evaluate three questions: (1) What causes of death have contributed to the narrowing of the sex difference in life expectancy between 1971 and 1991? (2) What is the relative contribution of different causes of death to the survival discrepancy within specified age categories? (3) How have cause-specific mortality differences between the sexes changed over time in their impacts on the differential in life expectation? In our discussion section we assess the relevance of our empirical results to the substantive issues underlying this investigation namely the importance of bio-demographic and sociological factors for the onset of reversal in the sex gap in death probabilities. (SUMMARY IN FRE) (EXCERPT)

Sex differential in life expectancy in Japan and Scotland: age and causes of death.

The contribution of age groups and causes of death to the sex difference in life expectancy (SDLE) at birth in Japan and Scotland was estimated for the period 1965-1990. The purpose was to determine the particular age groups and causes of death responsible for the opposite trend of SDLE in the two countries. SDLE has been widening and narrowing in Japan and Scotland, respectively. The availability of complete and reliable data for these two developed countries facilitated the study. A method of decomposing the total SDLE into age and cause of death components was employed. About 40-60% contribution to SDLE was observed for ages after 65 years. Marked increase in the contribution of the 75+ age group and marked decrease in the contribution of ages 45-64 for Japan and Scotland, respectively, had a major effect on the widening and narrowing of SDLE in the two countries, respectively. The contribution of diseases of the circulatory system was the maximum until 1980 in Japan (< or = 1.8 years or 33.6%; cerebrovascular disease alone < or = 23.4%) and until 1990 in Scotland (< or = 3.1 years or 47.0%; ischemic heart disease alone < or = 42.0%). In Japan, the contribution of malignancy had a marked increased from 0.7 year (12.3%) to 2.0 years (32.6%), particularly for the trachea, bronchus and lung, while there was only a small increase in Scotland from 1.0 year (16.6%) to 1.2 years (19.8%) with an increase in the negative contribution of female breast malignancy. In Japan, the contribution of diseases of the respiratory system increased considerably from 0.5 year (8.5%) to 1.1 years (18.1%) while it decreased in Scotland from 1.0 year (16.5%) to 0.6 year (10.7%). About 60-75% of SDLE is due to the above three groups of causes of death. Malignancy and diseases of the respiratory system had a persistently increased contribution in Japan with resultant widening of SDLE by 0.9 year. Diseases of the circulatory system have always had a high contribution. On the contrary, in Scotland the contribution of diseases of the circulatory system and malignancy was practically unchanged and diseases of the respiratory system had a decrease with a consequent narrowing of SDLE by 0.4 year. Further epidemiological study is necessary to detect and analyze in detail the internal gradients (environmental and genetic-biological) of major contributor diseases to SDLE in Japan and Scotland.

Covert suicide among elderly Japanese females: Questioning unintensional drownings

A hypothesis is generated that despite high reported rates, suicide among elderly Japanese females is substantially underestimated due to misclassification of drowning suicides (ICD-9 E954) as unintentional drownings (ICD-9 E910). Data are adapted from 1979-1981 age-, sex- and cause-specific mortality tabulations for Japan, the United States, Australia, France, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Between ages 55 and 74 years, unintentional drowning rates for males and females in Japan begin to diverge sharply from those of comparison countries. By ages 75 and older, the rate for Japanese females is 13.5 per 100,000, which exceeds comparison rates by 7- to 15-fold. Although drowning suicide rates in this population are also high, its ratio of drowning suicides to unintentional drownings declines precipitously beyond ages 35-44. Excess drowning suicide underestimation among Japanese females is suggested by the absence of a similar change among the males and evidence of both a lack of drowning witnesses and sex differentials in life expectancy, living arrangements and suicide methods. A preliminary test of the drowning suicide hypothesis is proposed which incorporates psychological autopsies.

Why Be a Wife?

The authors study British data concerning the length of time spent in marriage by men and women which could be interpreted as an indicator of the differential benefits derived by men and women from the matrimonial relation. Sex differentials in life expectancy and in remarriage rates are examined as factors contributing to differences in the proportion of time spent in marriage. The economic implications of these trends are also discussed with emphasis on the disadvantages faced by women in the labor market (EXCERPT)

Sex-specific aging in the nematode Panagrellus redivivus

Females of the free-living nematode Panagrellus redivivus have a greater mean life span than do males. Unmated animals live longer than mated individuals. Decreased nutritional levels or increased temperature decrease life span. The sex differences in life expectancy are also shown by behavioral activity and osmotic fragility. Behavioral activity decreases in older animals.