Gender Differences in Perceived Health Expectancy for Chinese Elderly

The purpose of this paper is to compare the changes of perceived health expectancies of Chinese elderly from 1987 to 2010, and explore the gender differences in the change of health status. Based on nationally representative data, we calculated the perceived health expectancies of the Chinese elderly for both males and females, and made a comparison with the results of the perceived health expectancies of the elderly among 1987, 1992, 2000 and 2010. We found that the morbidity of the elderly was expanded from 1992 to 2000 and compressed from 1987 to 1992 and from 2000 to 2010, and found that the expansion in morbidity for females was more serious than that for males, even though the increase of life expectancy for females was much quicker than that of males. The changes of health status of the elderly, especially for females, were abnormal from 1992 to 2000. The change in social institutions should take some responsibility for the worsening of health for the elderly at that time.