Gender differences in health and mortality

This paper examines the relationship between marital status and mortality by sex and age, as well as the change in this relationship during the past twenty years in Korea. Relative Mortality Ratios and abridged life tables were conducted from 1990 to 2010 for every five years. They were calculated using population by marital status from the Population and Household Census and deaths by marital status from vital statistics. Findings are as follows. First, mortality is different by marital status and the differences are greater for males than females in Korea. In 2010, life expectancy was 6.6 years shorter for single males than married males, 4.0 years shorter for single females than married females. Divorced people’s life spans were shorter than those of married people by 6.1 years for males and 2.1 years for females. Second, mortality differences by marital status for males are greater in the younger age group, while female’s differences are consistent over all age groups. Third, all unmarried people’s life expectancy disadvantages have decreased. The largest decrease happened to single females, with a life span difference of 20.4 years in 1990 to 4.0 years in 2010. The smallest reduction has happened to divorced males, from 8.1 years in 1990 to 6.1 years in 2010.

Based on 2006 National Sampling Survey on Disability and 2007-2010 National Monitoring Survey, with the method of Fairlie non-linear decomposition, the study analyzes the gender differences in death level among people with disabilities in China, and explores contribution factors of differences, from the aspect of health and environment.The results as followed.
When classified by disability type or severity degree, the female’s risk is higher than male in more than half of the people, different from the situation among general population. Disability type and severity have effects upon the mode of gender difference. Difference among people with visual disability is the largest. The difference goes up along with the decrease of severity of disability.
The overall contribution of explanatory variables reduces the difference. Environmental factors make greater protection to male than to female.
Different sub-populations show different mode of contribution factors. The elderly and the unemployed rely on income and marital status significantly.
Age, employment, marital status and disability severity make remarkable contributions to the difference. With the control of other variables, age reduces the gap; employment, as well as with spouse show greater protection to male than to female; disability severity expands the gap.

While the sex ratio generally favors men in India,the trend reverses in favor of females at older ages.More often than not, women are over burdened with cumulative inequalities.Thus,a longer life span is directly correlated to greater morbidity and higher incidence of chronic diseases and sufferings for the older women.However,only few studies addressed the existing gender differentials in health status and health seeking behavior,particularly among the aged population.Using the data “Study of Global Ageing and Adult Health”(India)this paper aims to find out the gender differentials between self-reported morbidity and symptom-based morbidity of selected chronic diseases between men and women aged 50+ for India.An attempt is made to identify the risk factors that are leading to gender differentials in health among the elderly by applying the gender framework for chronic diseases.It will also probe the extent of gender differentials in treatment seeking behavior.Results show that for most of the chronic diseases the symptom based prevalence is much higher than the self-reported prevalence for both the sexes.But this difference is higher among the elderly women than the elderly men.The higher prevalence of symptom based disease among women shows that women are mostly unaware of their health needs and problems as compared to men.

In India, stigma driven discrimination due to diseases, low status of women in family and decision making power for treatment seeking has impact on health outcome of women which has been largely ignored in TB research and control efforts. In present paper attempt has been made to study the linkages between gender, social discrimination attached to TB and its influence on health outcome. Study uses small scale data collected from 367 tuberculosis patients living in slums of M-ward, Mumbai. Result reveals that female tend to hide their disease status and experiences more discrimination compared to male. Bi-variate and multivariate result shows that among women lower gap in knowledge about TB, adherence, shorter health system delay and experience of no discrimination likely to result with positive health outcome. Whilst among male, working, adherence, lesser symptoms of TB is significantly linked with successful outcome. Differences in factors of male and female in successful outcome show that condition of women is poor in accessing effective treatment due to social barriers attached. This clearly brings the need to focus on stigma and discrimination attached to TB in the community. Knowledge programs need to emphasis more on educating women about TB.

The death of a child is one of the most traumatic events that a parent can experience. The psychological and physical consequences of bereavement are well established, and the consequences are more severe for mothers than fathers. However, little is known about how the death of an adult child affects parental wellbeing in old age or how the deceased child’s sex may moderate the association. We use data from the Taiwanese Longitudinal Study of Aging (TLSA) to investigate how the death of a son or a daughter differentially affects the wellbeing of older parents, measured by depressive symptoms and self-rated health. We find that for mothers, a son’s death is associated with an increase in depressive symptoms and a decline in self-rated health, but fathers’ health is not adversely affected by a son’s death. There is little evidence that a daughter’s death has a negative effect on either maternal or paternal wellbeing. We situate these findings within their social and cultural contexts and discuss social policies that would reduce gender and health inequality.

While there is a widespread interest for gender health differences in public policy and scientific debates within developed countries, studies on this topic are scarce in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. However, gender differences in sub-Saharan Africa health status are important, with the few available studies showing that women report worse health than men. Nevertheless, the sources of these differences are rarely explored. We used an extension of Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition using logistic models with data from the 2002 World Health Survey to partition the women-men poor self-rated health (SRH) gaps into a component reflecting differential “exposure” to risk factors between women and men, and a component reflecting differential “vulnerability” to risk factors in sixteen sub-Saharan African countries. We found that women more often reported poor SRH than men in all the countries analyzed (apart from Kenya). Decomposition analyses showed that differential exposure largely explained the women-men gaps in poor SRH in all the countries studied, with an explained part ranging from a low of 64% in Zambia to a high of 122% in Malawi. Disability, arthritis, socio-economic, psychosocial and behavioral risk factors proved important contributors to the observed differences in men’s and women’s poor SRH.

Anaemia is a common, multifactorial condition which cuts across all the sections of the population and is associated with a variety of adverse outcomes, including mortality. Globally prevalence of anaemia is 71.25 percent in females while it 40.2 percent in males, making it a major public health issue to the researchers. Considerable changes in growth pattern, lifestyle, food quality, dietary habits and behaviour are likely to influence the gender differences in the prevalence of anaemia. Anaemia is an indicator of poor health and nutrition both. The most dramatic health consequences of anaemia is increased risk of maternal and child mortality. Haemoglobin level is the primary and most reliable indicator of anaemia.
Ayurveda the Ancient Indian Medicine System has several preventive measures to correct the anaemia level in human body. In this study different dynamics of Ayurvada like Dincharya (daily routine), Rhitucharya (seasonal routine) and Aharvidhi (eating habits) have been considered and found effective to combat the disease and address the regression of contributing factor as well. The outcome of this study revealed a new dimension of integrated approach of above measures in reducing the prevalence of global anaemia.

In India, the under-five mortality rates (U5MR) including neonatal, infant and child mortality rates started declining since the late 1970s and socio-economic behavioural determinants have had a significant role in reducing child mortality. Factors such as place of residence and sex have bearing on child mortality. The basic objective of this study is to describe and understand how deaths of children under-five years vary with and depend upon these socio-economic characteristics. The study uses data from the three National Family Health Surveys conducted between 1992 and 2006 to study changes that have taken place across regions over time. U5MRs are computed for the three surveys for four subgroups viz., Urban Males, Rural Males, Urban Females and Rural Females. The box percentile plot is used to compare the distribution for its extent of variation and the trend in variations graphically. Distribution dynamics is used to examine explicit patterns of cross regional interactions and states with low and high U5MRs are identified. The results of this study show that a higher share of public services on health, education and amenities has had a significant impact in bringing down mortality levels. The essentiality of public services is thus emphasised.

“Health for All” is a Millennium Development Goal and is also imbibed in National Health Policy 2002 . Health in this context may be described as an individual’s ability to adapt and modify according to the changing conditions of life, an individual’s need to have a healthy life-style. Several factors play an important role in determining the health of an individual. Availability of health care in India is uneven and unequal for women and children. There are several specific health problems that women face and hence there is a need for a gender focused understanding of their health issue. Socio-demographic factors are factors associated with the patriarchal structure of society and the hierarchical position of gender. The roots of poor health status of women are often neglected in the society. India is characterized by male domination which essentially gives an inferior status to women. As a consequences of their lower status overall, women experience discrimination in the allocation of household resources including food and access to health services.
The present paper based on empirical study will highlight the poor state of health of the girls in Mumbai who slowly accept the negligence and injustice in the society.

In a span of 40 years, the life expectancy of the Philippines increased by ten years for males and 11.5 years for females. It is unknown however, which ages contribute most to these gains in life expectancy. Using discrete decomposition approach, this paper estimates the relative contributions of each age group in the improvement of life expectancy over the years, separately for males and females. The resulting life expectancy given possible gains in mortality rates in the next few years in the context of the millennium development goals will also be estimated.