Narrowing sex differentials in life expectancy in the industrialized world: Early 1970's to early 1990's

Gender Convergence in Human Survival and the Postponement of Death

“…This marks the year when the gender gap was at its narrowest in any of the four countries. The Swedish case lends weight to the argument that there are no fundamental biological differences between male and female life expectancy, but that the factors responsible for the gap are primarily societal and gender-centric (Trovato, 1996).…”

“…Also apparent in a number of countries is a convergence in gender life expectancy which Trovato (2007) calls the 'emerging epidemiological feature of post-industrial societies' (see also Trovato, 1996, 2003, Tuljapurkar et al 2000.…”

Cause-specific contributions to sex differences in adult mortality among whites and African Americans between 1960 and 1995

“…A detailed description of the contributions leading causes of death make to changes in sex mortality differences over time can help shed light on possible explanations for the observed trends. Although there have been several previous investigations of sex differences in mortality in the United States and elsewhere (e.g., Verbrugge 1976;Waldron 1993Waldron , 1995Trovato and Lalu 1996;Zhang, Sasaki and Kestelroot 1995), no study has systematically examined trends in sex mortality differences among African Americans.…”

“…The narrowing of mortality differences between men and women that we observe for whites is not atypical of trends in other developed countries. Trovato and Lalu (1996) documented that by the early 1990s sex difference in life expectancy had narrowed in 12 industrialized countries. For African Americans, however, the narrowing of the sex difference in life expectancy did not begin until well into the 1990s.…”

Divergence without decoupling

“…Even for infant mortality, the role of biology in sex differences is debated (Pongou 2013). The long-held interest in mortality sex differentials has generated a large body of literature (e.g., Ciocco 1940a,b;Enterline 1961;Retherford 1975;Preston 1976Preston , 1977Lopez and Ruzicka 1983;Nathanson 1984;Ram 1993;Vallin 1995;Trovato and Lalu 1996;Kalben 2002;Pampel 2002;Meslé 2004;Preston and Wang 2006;Glei and Horiuchi 2007;Luy 2009;Rogers et al 2010;Oksuzyan et al 2010;Medalia and Chang 2011;Clark and Peck 2012;Kageyama 2012;Sawyer 2012;Seifarth, McGowan, and Milne 2012;Lindahl-Jacobsen et al 2013;Thorslund et al 2013;Oyen et al 2013), a complete review of which is beyond the current scope. Our question is whether the forces that shape time series of life expectancy do so in a similar way for males and for females.…”