It is often said that men live less healthily on average and therefore not as long as women. According to a new study, however, the gap in life expectancy has narrowed – with striking regional differences.
For many decades, women’s life expectancy has increased faster than men’s. Now comes one new study to the result: this imbalance has been decreasing again since the end of the 20th century. However, there are significant regional differences, as reported by the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) in Wiesbaden.
For the study, the researchers examined “for the first time detailed cause of death data for 228 regions in seven European countries”. While men were still more than seven years behind women in terms of life expectancy in the mid-1990s, this difference has narrowed to less than five and a half years in recent decades.
- Right up front with only 3.3 years apart lay the Northwestern Switzerland with Basel and the surrounding areaclosely followed by Munich and surroundings with 3.5 years.
- In Southern Germany, Denmark and Switzerland were the differences in life expectancy with sometimes less than four years also particularly low.
- In parts of East Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and France were the differences in life expectancy between men and women six and more years however, about twice as large.
Differences between town and country
According to the BiB, the researchers also observed major differences between urban and rural areas. “Thanks to their good job opportunities, thriving cities tend to attract healthy and qualified population groups, while structurally weak regions are less attractive for these people,” explained Markus Sauerberg from the BiB. According to the research institute, this contributes to “the fact that comparatively low mortality with small gender differences is often observed in large cities”.
According to the BiB, a lower life expectancy can be caused by unhealthy behavior. In the 20th century, smoking, which was more widespread among men, was a major reason why their life expectancy increased more slowly than that of women. According to the BiB, men also worked longer for a long time and were therefore exposed to more health risks on the job.
More and more pacemakers are now helping men in particular to live longer. In addition, according to the information, smoking-related mortality is already declining among them, while it is still increasing among women because they only started smoking more intensively since the 1960s. Furthermore, the gender gap in job-related health risks is narrowing because more women are now working.
Key Aspect: Lifestyle
“As the results of other studies show, only a small part of the differences between men and women can be attributed to biological differences between the sexes. The larger part depends on lifestyle and on the prevention and early detection of diseases,” the BiB said .
These aspects could be influenced by one’s own behavior and society. “How the roles of men and women in private life, at work and in crisis situations are viewed by society has a significant impact on gender differences in mortality,” explained Sebastian Klüsener, co-author of the study. “This includes, for example, whether the man is seen as more responsible for the household income, or whether certain health-impairing behaviors such as smoking or alcohol consumption are more likely to be tolerated by men or women and are more widespread.” When role models converged, the differences in mortality between men and women also tended to converge.