José Tomás Mateos
1,2 
, José Fernández-Sáez
3,4,5* , Jorge Marcos-Marcos
6 , Carlos Álvarez-Dardet
2,7,8 , Clare Bambra
9 , Jennie Popay
10 , Kedar Baral
11 , Connie Musolino
12 , Fran Baum
12 1 Department of Nursing and Physiotherapy, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain.
2 Public Health Research Group, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
3 Unitat de Suport a la Recerca Terres de l´Ebre, Fundació Institut Universitari per a la recerca a l’Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina (IDIAPJGol), Tortosa, Spain.
4 Unidat de Recerca, Gerència Territorial Terres de l´Ebre, Institut Catalá de la Salut, Tortosa, Spain.
5 Facultat de Enfermería, Campus Terres de l´Ebre, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tortosa, Spain.
6 Department of Health Psychology, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
7 University Research Institute for Gender Studies, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
8 Biomedical Research Networking Center for Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain.
9 Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
10 Division of Health Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.
11 Department of Community Health Sciences, Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.
12 Southgate Institute for Health, Society & Equity, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Abstract
When looking at life expectancy (LE) by sex, women live longer than men in all countries. Biological factors alone do not explain gender differences in LE, and examining structural differences may help illuminate other explanatory factors. The aim of this research is to analyse the influence of gender inequality on the gender gap in LE globally. We have carried out a regression analysis between the gender gap in relativised LE and the UN Gender Inequality Index (GII), with a sensitivity analysis conducted for its three dimensions, stratified by the six World Health Organization (WHO) regions. We adjusted the model by taking into consideration gross national income (GNI), democratic status and rural population. The results indicated a positive association for the European region (ß=0.184) and the Americas (ß=0.136) in our adjusted model. Conversely, for the African region, the relations between gender equality and the LE gender gap were found to be negative (ß=-0.125). The findings suggest that in the WHO European region and the Americas, greater gender equality leads to a narrowing of the gender LE gap, while it has a contrary relationship in Africa. We suggest that this could be because only higher scores in the GII between men and women show health benefits.