Page 22 - IJPS-7-2

International Journal of
Population Studies Gender gap in life expectancy in South and East Europe

consequently one of the successor states after the breakup health, males experience a shorter longevity than females,
of the Yugoslav Federation. Türkiye is a transcontinental because of both biological and environmental differences
country. Only a small portion of Türkiye is located within that involve behavioral, cultural, and social factors (Alberts
Balkans in Southeast Europe. In addition, Türkiye has the et al., 2014). This gender health survival paradox was well
status of candidate country for EU membership since 1989 documented at the end of the last century within high-
and is among the oldest member states of the Council of income countries in Europe, Japan, and the United States.
Europe (since 1950). Cyprus has been an EU country since The reasons why females have greater longevity but with
May 1, 2004. poorer conditions of health than males are compound and
The paper is structured as follows: Section 1.1 provides are in general ascribed to differences in socioeconomic
a broad theoretical background on the research topic. position, genetic and acquired risks, responses of the
Section 1.2 presents the research context of the explanatory immune system, function of hormones, prevention and
variables. Section 2 shows data and methods with 2.1 about the type of disease, change in health, and health behavior
data sources and measurements and 2.2 about methods (Gu et al., 2009; Oksuzyan et al., 2008). In addition,
used. Section 3 presents results; Section 3.1 describes the according to these scholars, studies confirmed that it is
trends of the gender gap in LEAB within South and East more probable for males to pass away immediately and that
European countries. In Section 3.2, the application of it is more likely to be the case for females to be exposed to a
the generalized method of moments/dynamic panel data slow process of physical deterioration. Thus, Cambois et al.
(GMM/DPD) method and main findings are presented. (2001) explained this to a certain extent by gender-related
Section 4 discusses the results and Section 5 provides differences in the type of widespread diseases: Males had a
major conclusions. greater prevalence of fatal diseases and females had suffered
more from disabling diseases. Furthermore, research on
1.1. Theoretical background populations regarding the health survival paradox suggests
the female disadvantages in health and functioning and
LEAB is a well-acknowledged indicator of the general that males are physically stronger, report a small number of
population’s health. It is impossible to disentangle LEAB diseases, and have not many constraints in the daily living
with working and living conditions, exposure to pollution, activities at older ages than females.
access to education, health care, income, as well as the
social support (Pinho-Gomes et al., 2022). The gender gap No matter how, the question of gender differences
in LEAB continues to be a reality across the whole world. in morbidity has been considered as more complicated
Females on average have 5 – 7 years higher LEAB than than the scheme in daily living activities and physical
males (Kavanagh et al., 2017). Females’ LEAB exceeds performances. This is so because of variation in the
males’ LEAB in almost every country throughout the acuteness of diseases and the measure of severity, diagnostic
world (United Nations, 2022). The decline in mortality procedures, as well as the age-related change in incidence
worldwide has always occurred with a change in the gender and prevalence of many diseases (Alberts et al., 2014). As
gap. Attaneé and Barbiéri (2009, pp.68-69) indicate that: an example, these scholars mentioned the incidence of
“A situation of broadly equal male and female life spans, coronary heart disease that starts to rise earlier for males
gradually gives way to one in which females have a clear than for females, but the gender differences in heart disease
advantage over men, albeit varying in size between cultures are small at the oldest ages.
and regions and the excess female mortality, common Glei and Horiuchi (2007) demonstrated that the
at younger ages and in the childbearing years, gradually differences in LEAB between males and females could
diminishes and eventually disappears altogether.” broaden even when the differences in age-specific death
In most developed countries, females are expected to rates lessen. This is possible if the level of mortality
live about 4 – 5 years longer than males. The roots of the dispersion is dissimilar between males and females, because
gender gap in LEAB seem to appear in biological differences the relation between the gain in LEAB and mortality change
among males and females and as well as modified by depends on mortality dispersion. Glei and Horiuchi (2007)
social-based norms and roles, obstacles, lifestyles, and disclosed that the increase in LEAB as a consequence from
epidemiological conditions that allow behavioral patterns mortality decline has a tendency to be slighter if adult
and differences in the environmental surroundings to have mortality rises more sharply with age. Thus, for a given rate
an effect on health (Zarulli et al., 2021). When looking at the of mortality decline, the gain in LEAB is greater if the age
variations in the gender gap between different countries, pattern of mortality is more dispersed. In other words, if the
Medalia and Chang (2011) suggested that the biological level of mortality dispersion differs between the males and
component is likely to be directly conditional by social females, the same age-specific rates of mortality decline for
factors. Existing evidence shows that regardless of better both sexes could change the gender differences in LEAB.

Volume 7 Issue 2 (2021) 16 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.v7i2.389