IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i7p1280-1287.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The changing gender differences in life expectancy in Korea 1970–2005

Author

Listed:
  • Yang, Seungmi
  • Khang, Young-Ho
  • Chun, Heeran
  • Harper, Sam
  • Lynch, John

Abstract

Women live much longer than men in Korea, with remarkable gains in life expectancy at birth for the past decades. The gender differential has steadily increased over time, reaching a peak of more than 8 years in 1980s, and decreased thereafter to 6.7 years in 2005. Studies to investigate the pattern and contributing factors to changes in the life expectancy gender gap have been mostly from Western countries, and there has been no such study in Asian countries, except in Japan. We therefore aimed to examine age- and cause-specific contributions to the changing gender differentials in life expectancy in Korea, in particular the decline of the gap, using a decomposition method. Between 1970 and 1979 when the gender gap in life expectancy widened, faster mortality decline among women in ages 20–44 explained 66% of the total increase in the gender gap, which would be due to substantial improvements in reproductive health among women and excess male mortality in occupational injuries and transport accidents. Although greater survival advantage among elderly women over 70 contributed to further increase in the gender gap, the contributions from younger ages with the ages 15–64 contributing the most (−2 years) resulted in the overall reduction of the gender gap which began in 1992 and continued to 2005. Among causes of death, liver diseases (−0.5 years, 38% of the total decline), transport accidents (−0.4 years, 31%), hypertensive diseases (−0.3 years, 19%), stroke (−0.1 years, 11%), and tuberculosis (−0.1 years) contributed the most to the overall 1.4 years reduction in the gender gap. However, changes in mortality from lung cancer (+0.3 years), suicide (+0.3 years), chronic lower respiratory diseases (+0.2 years), and ischemic heart diseases (+0.1 years) contributed to widening the gap during the same period. In sum, while smoking-related causes of death have contributed most to the narrowing gap in most other industrialized countries, these causes contributed toward increasing the gender gap in Korea. Instead, liver disease, hypertension-related diseases, and transport accidents were major contributing causes of death to the narrowing of gender differentials in life expectancy in Korea.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang, Seungmi & Khang, Young-Ho & Chun, Heeran & Harper, Sam & Lynch, John, 2012. "The changing gender differences in life expectancy in Korea 1970–2005," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(7), pages 1280-1287.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:7:p:1280-1287
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.04.026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612003942
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.04.026?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fred C. Pampel, 2002. "Cigarette Use and the Narrowing Sex Differential in Mortality," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 28(1), pages 77-104, March.
    2. Chun, Heeran & Khang, Young-Ho & Kim, Il-Ho & Cho, Sung-Il, 2008. "Explaining gender differences in ill-health in South Korea: The roles of socio-structural, psychosocial, and behavioral factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(6), pages 988-1001, September.
    3. Fred Pampel, 2005. "Forecasting sex differences in mortality in high income nations," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 13(18), pages 455-484.
    4. Hiram Beltran-Sanchez & Samuel Preston & Vladimir Canudas-Romo, 2008. "An integrated approach to cause-of-death analysis: cause-deleted life tables and decompositions of life expectancy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 19(35), pages 1323-1350.
    5. Jeroen Spijker & Frans van Poppel & Leo van Wissen, 2007. "Explaining new trends in the gender gap of mortality: Insights from a regional trend- analysis of the Netherlands," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 5(1), pages 61-92.
    6. Eduardo Arriaga, 1984. "Measuring and explaining the change in life expectancies," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 21(1), pages 83-96, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Audrey Ugarte & Onofre Alves Simões, 2020. "Breaking Life Expectancy into Small Pieces," Working Papers REM 2020/0154, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. Eun, Sang Jun, 2019. "Avoidable, amenable, and preventable mortalities in South Korea, 2000–2017: Age-period-cohort trends and impact on life expectancy at birth," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Vesper H. Chisumpa & Clifford O. Odimegwu & Nandita Saikia, 2019. "Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa: What is Killing Adults Aged 15-59 Years in Zambia?," VID Working Papers 1904, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Louise Sundberg & Neda Agahi & Johan Fritzell & Stefan Fors, 2018. "Why is the gender gap in life expectancy decreasing? The impact of age- and cause-specific mortality in Sweden 1997–2014," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 63(6), pages 673-681, July.
    2. Karina Acosta-Ordoñez & Julio E. Romero-Prieto, 2017. "Cambios recientes en las principales causas de mortalidad en Colombia," Chapters, in: Jaime Bonet & Karelys Guzmán-Finol & Lucas Wilfried Hahn-De-Castro (ed.), La salud en Colombia: una perspectiva regional, chapter 4, pages 79-119, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    3. Cristina Belles-Obrero & Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Judit Vall Castello, 2019. "Education and Gender Differences in Mortality Rates," Working Papers 2019-05, FEDEA.
    4. Martin Gaechter & Peter Schwazer & Engelbert Theurl, 2012. "Stronger Sex but Earlier Death: A Multi-level Socioeconomic Analysis of Gender Differences in Mortality in Austria," DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, European Association Comenius - EACO, issue 1, pages 1-23, March.
    5. Beltrán-Sánchez, Hiram & Soneji, Samir, 2011. "A unifying framework for assessing changes in life expectancy associated with changes in mortality: The case of violent deaths," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 38-48.
    6. Glenn Firebaugh & Francesco Acciai & Aggie Noah & Christopher J Prather & Claudia Nau, 2014. "Why the racial gap in life expectancy is declining in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(32), pages 975-1006.
    7. Per Kragh Andersen & Vladimir Canudas-Romo & Niels Keiding, 2013. "Cause-specific measures of life years lost," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(41), pages 1127-1152.
    8. Vladimir Shkolnikov & Evgeny Andreev & Zhen Zhang & James Oeppen & James Vaupel, 2011. "Losses of Expected Lifetime in the United States and Other Developed Countries: Methods and Empirical Analyses," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(1), pages 211-239, February.
    9. Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher & Jim Oeppen & Niels Vilstrup Holm & Hanne Melgaard Nielsen & Rune Lindahl-Jacobsen & Maarten Jan Wensink, 2019. "Understanding Differences in Cancer Survival between Populations: A New Approach and Application to Breast Cancer Survival Differentials between Danish Regions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-16, August.
    10. James W. Vaupel, 2009. "Lively Questions for Demographers about Death at Older Ages," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 35(2), pages 347-356, June.
    11. Dmitri A. Jdanov & Vladimir M. Shkolnikov, 2014. "Assessment of cross-sectional and longitudinal components of a difference with an algorithm of contour replacement," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2014-010, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    12. Lenny Stoeldraijer & Coen van Duin & Leo van Wissen & Fanny Janssen, 2013. "Impact of different mortality forecasting methods and explicit assumptions on projected future life expectancy: The case of the Netherlands," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(13), pages 323-354.
    13. Cristina Belles-Obrero & Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Judit Vall Castello, 2019. "Education and Gender Differences in Mortality Rates," Studies on the Spanish Economy 2019-05, FEDEA.
    14. Konstantinos N. Zafeiris, 2020. "Gender differences in life expectancy at birth in Greece 1994–2017," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 73-89, March.
    15. Brian Rostron & John Wilmoth, 2011. "Estimating the Effect of Smoking on Slowdowns in Mortality Declines in Developed Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(2), pages 461-479, May.
    16. Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher & Marcus Ebeling & Vladimir Canudas-Romo, 2015. "Decomposing changes in life expectancy: Compression versus shifting mortality," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(14), pages 391-424.
    17. Irma Elo & Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez & James Macinko, 2014. "The Contribution of Health Care and Other Interventions to Black–White Disparities in Life Expectancy, 1980–2007," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(1), pages 97-126, February.
    18. Jose Manuel Aburto & Jesús-Adrián Alvarez & Francisco Villavicencio & James W. Vaupel, 2019. "The threshold age of the lifetable entropy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(4), pages 83-102.
    19. John Bongaarts, 2014. "Trends in Causes of Death in Low-Mortality Countries: Implications for Mortality Projections," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 40(2), pages 189-212, June.
    20. Glenn Firebaugh & Francesco Acciai & Aggie Noah & Christopher Prather & Claudia Nau, 2014. "Why Lifespans Are More Variable Among Blacks Than Among Whites in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(6), pages 2025-2045, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:7:p:1280-1287. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.