Trovato F, Lalu N M
Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Soc Biol. 1996 Spring-Summer;43(1-2):20-37. doi: 10.1080/19485565.1996.9988911.
Between the early 1970's and 1990's, twelve industrialized nations experienced for the first time a narrowing of their sex differences in life expectancy at age zero. In another set of countries, the differential has not yet reached a stage of convergence, although in some of these nations the female advantage appears to be increasing at a slower pace than ever before. We discuss the demographic and epidemiologic conditions for this new and largely unanticipated trend, as well as its applied and theoretical implications in the context of the following questions: (1) Is the observed change a function of males' faster pace of gains in life expectancy since the early 1970s? (2) What is the relationship between country differences in socioeconomic development (as measured by GNP) and the degree of convergence in the sex gap in average length of life? (3) What is the degree of association between temporal change in age-sex specific death rates and change in the sex gap in life expectancy over the twenty-year interval between the early 1970s and early 1990s? Our results indicate that where some convergence has taken place, in relation to women, men have experienced more rapid gains in survival; the higher a nation's level of social and economic development, the greater the amount of convergence in male and female life expectancies. The most pronounced age-specific association with the changing sex gap in longevity is that of ages 25-59, where the greater reductions in male mortality, as compared to that for females, contributed to a significant portion of the observed convergence in life expectancy across industrialized nations.
在20世纪70年代初至90年代期间，12个工业化国家首次出现了零岁时预期寿命的性别差异缩小的情况。在另一组国家中，这种差异尚未达到趋同阶段，尽管在其中一些国家，女性的优势似乎正以比以往任何时候都慢的速度增长。我们讨论了这一全新且在很大程度上出乎意料的趋势的人口统计学和流行病学状况，以及在以下问题背景下其应用和理论意义：（1）观察到的变化是否是自20世纪70年代初以来男性预期寿命增长速度更快的结果？（2）国家在社会经济发展方面的差异（以国民生产总值衡量）与平均寿命性别差距的趋同程度之间有什么关系？（3）在20世纪70年代初至90年代初的20年间隔期间，特定年龄性别死亡率的时间变化与预期寿命性别差距的变化之间的关联程度如何？我们的结果表明，在已经出现某种趋同的地方，相对于女性而言，男性在生存方面取得了更快的进步；一个国家的社会和经济发展水平越高，男性和女性预期寿命的趋同程度就越大。与寿命性别差距变化最显著的特定年龄关联是25至59岁年龄段，与女性相比，该年龄段男性死亡率的更大幅度下降在工业化国家观察到的预期寿命趋同中占了很大一部分。
