Compiled by | Wang Fang
A study published on January 17th in the Journal Public Science Library - Comprehensive shows that historically, women have always had longer lifespans than men, but changes in lifestyle may be helping the latter to catch up gradually.Globally, the average lifespan of humans has been increasing over the past century. This trend is expected to continue as countries become more prosperous. Although it has increased, there has always been a gap in life expectancy between men and women.To learn more, David Atance del Olmo and his colleagues from Alcalá University in Spain analyzed mortality data from 194 countries from 1990 to 2010. Based on trends in lifespan, these countries were divided into five groups.The population with the longest average life expectancy comes from the wealthiest countries, such as Australia, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western European regions. The population with the shortest life expectancy is only found in countries like Rwanda and Uganda.When comparing the life expectancy of men and women in these countries, the researchers found that the largest increase in life expectancy was among men in Rwanda and Uganda. In 1990, their average life expectancy was only 30.85 years, but it increased by 14.37 years to reach 45.22 years in 2010. During the same period, life expectancy for women in these countries only increased by 0.94 years, from 50.37 years to 51.31 years.Among the population with the longest life expectancy, the gap between the average life expectancy of men and women was 4.84 years in 1990, with women having a longer lifespan. By 2010, this number had slightly decreased to 4.77 years. The researchers predict that this gap will continue to shrink and may be around 3.4 years by 2030.The research team observed the same trend in three other groups of countries. Although the data only goes up until 2010, they predict that similar trends have continued until now. However, they also acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had an impact on overall life expectancy, especially for men.Del Olmo stated that in recent decades, both men and women have benefited from advances in healthcare and increased awareness of diseases such as HIV/AIDS. He noted that the number of deaths associated with smoking and alcohol consumption has also decreased, which may contribute to narrowing the gap in life expectancy between men and women, as tobacco and alcohol have a more severe impact on men.Brandon Yan from the University of California, San Francisco, says, "The results of this study are consistent with epidemiological trends, which show that as time goes on, global life expectancy will increase and the gender gap will narrow."Related Research Paper:
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295842
China Science News (January 19, 2024, 2nd edition, International, originally titled "The Gender Gap in Lifespan is Narrowing")Editor | Ji HongmeiLayout | Guo GangScan the QR code below for 3 seconds to identify
