Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:05:51.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What has contributed to the large sex differentials in lifespan variation and life expectancy in South Korea?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2020

Akansha Singh Open the ORCID record for Akansha Singh [Opens in a new window]  and
Younga Kim
Akansha Singh
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Durham University, UK
Younga Kim*
Affiliation:
Korea Labor Institute, South Korea
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To date, research on sex differentials in lifespan variation and life expectancy has mainly been conducted in Western countries and there is a dearth of data from South Korea. This study aimed to further the understanding of mortality transition and life expectancy in South Korea, and the associated trajectories of age-at-death variation, through an analysis of life disparity by gender. Using complete life tables for South Korea for 1970–2015, sex differentials (female–male differences) in life disparity and life expectancy at birth were estimated, and sex differentials in life expectancy were decomposed by age and cause of death. The results showed that sex differentials in life expectancy at birth have not reduced significantly in the last 45 years (1970: 7.1 years; 2015: 6.2 years). Life disparity has reduced more rapidly for females than males, and the difference increased from −0.1 year in 1981 to −1.6 years in 2015. Sex differentials in life expectancy and life disparity in South Korea were higher during 1970–2015 than in several Western countries with high life expectancy. The elderly age group (60 and above) contributed 50% of the total sex difference in life expectancy at birth in 1970, and this increased to 70% in 2015. The contribution of the age group 15–59 years reduced significantly over the period. Decomposition of life expectancy at birth by cause revealed that diseases of the circulatory system (2.2 years), followed by external causes (1.3 years), were the most important causes of the sex differences in life expectancy at birth in 1983, and in 2015 neoplasms (2.2 years) and external causes (1.1 years) explained half of the total sex differences. There has been a significant shift in the age-specific pattern of the contribution towards each cause of death. Overall, sex differentials in life disparity and life expectancy at birth have remained significant in South Korea in the last 45 years.

Keywords

Life expectancyLife disparitySex differences
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 396 - 406
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreev, EM (1982) Metod komponent v analize prodoljitelnosty zjizni. [The method of components in the analysis of length of life]. Vestnik Statistiki 9, 42–47.Google Scholar
Andreev, EM, Shkolnikov, VM and Begun, A (2002) Algorithm for decomposition of differences between aggregate demographic measures and its application to life expectancies, healthy life expectancies, parity-progression ratios and total fertility rates. Demographic Research 7(14), 499–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chun, H, Doyal, L, Payne, S, Cho, SI and Kim, IH (2006) Understanding women, health, and social change: the case of South Korea. International Journal of Health Services 36(3), 575–592.Google ScholarPubMed
Edwards, RD and Tuljapurkar, S (2005) Inequality in life spans and a new perspective on mortality convergence across industrialized countries. Population and Development Review 31(4), 645–674.Google Scholar
Engelman, M, Caswell, H and Agree, E (2014) Why do lifespan variability trends for the young and old diverge? A perturbation analysis. Demographic Research 30(48), 1367–1396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hewlett, E and Moran, V (2014) Making Mental Health Count: The Social and Economic Costs of Neglecting Mental Health Care. OECD Publishing, Paris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horiuchi, S (1999) Epidemiological transitions in developed countries: past, present and future. Paper presented at Health and Mortality Issues of Global Concern. Proceedings of the Symposium on Health and Mortality, Brussels, 19–22th November 1997. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, United Nations, New York, pp. 54–71.Google Scholar
Jung-Choi, K, Khang, YH, Cho, HJ and Yun, SC (2014) Decomposition of educational differences in life expectancy by age and causes of death among South Korean adults. BMC Public Health 14, 560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kannisto, V (2001) Mode and dispersion of the length of life. Population 13(1), 159–171.Google Scholar
Khang, YH, Bahk, J, Yi, N and Yun, SC (2016) Age- and cause-specific contributions to income difference in life expectancy at birth: findings from nationally representative data on one million South Koreans. European Journal of Public Health 26(2), 242–248.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Khang, YH, Lynch, JW and Kaplan, GA (2005) Impact of economic crisis on cause-specific mortality in South Korea. International Journal of Epidemiology 34(6), 1291–1301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kim, BY (1999) A development of the cause of death statistics. Journal of the Korean Official Statistics 4(2), 1–30.Google Scholar
Kontis, V, Bennett, JE, Mathers, CD, Li, G, Foreman, K and Ezzati, M (2017) Future life expectancy in 35 industrialised countries: projections with a Bayesian model ensemble. The Lancet 389(10076), 1323–1335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Korean National Police Agency (2017) Statistics on Traffic Accidents 2016. Korean National Police Agency, Seoul.Google Scholar
Kweon, SS (2018) Updates on cancer epidemiology in Korea, 2018. Chonnam Medical Journal 54(2), 90–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kwon, JW, Chun, H and Cho, S (2009) A closer look at the increase in suicide rates in South Korea from 1986–2005. BMC Public Health 9, 72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, SI, Khang, YH, Yun, S and Jo, MW (2005) Rising rates, changing relationships: caesarean section and its correlates in South Korea, 1988–2000. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 112(6), 810–819.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oksuzyan, A, Crimmins, E, Saito, Y, O’Rand, A, Vaupel, JW and Christensen, K (2010) Cross-national comparison of sex differences in health and mortality in Denmark, Japan and the US. European Journal of Epidemiology 25(7), 471–480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Omran, AR (1971) The epidemiologic transition. A theory of the epidemiology of population change. Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 49(4), 509–538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robine, JM (2001) Redefining the stages of the epidemiological transition by a study of the dispersion of life spans: the case of France. Population: An English Selection 13(1), 173–193.Google Scholar
Shkolnikov, VM and Andreev, EM (2010) Age-decomposition of a difference between two populations for any life-table quantity in excel. Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock (MPIDR technical report).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shkolnikov, VM, Andreev, EM and Begun, A (2003) Gini coefficient as a life table function: computation from discrete data, decomposition of differences and empirical examples. Demographic Research 8(11), 305–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shkolnikov, VM, Andreev, EM, Zhang, Z, Oeppen, J and Vaupel, JW (2011) Losses of expected lifetime in the United States and other developed countries: methods and empirical analyses. Demography 48(1), 211–239.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singh, A and Ladusingh, L (2013) Increasing life expectancy and convergence of age at death in India. Genus 69(1), 83–99.Google Scholar
Smits, J and Monden, C (2009) Length of life inequality around the globe. Social Science & Medicine 68(6), 1114–1123.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Son, M, Cho, Y, Oh, J, Kawachi, I, Yi, J and Kwon, S (2012) Social inequalities in life expectancy and mortality during the transition period of economic crisis (1993–2010) in Korea. International Journal for Equity in Health 11, 71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
South Korean National Statistics Office (2017) Complete Life Tables 1970–2015 and Cause Eliminated Life Tables 1995–2015. South Korean National Statistics Office.Google Scholar
Trovato, F and Heyen, NB (2006) A varied pattern of change of the sex differential in survival in the G7 countries. Journal of Biosocial Science 38(3), 391–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vaupel, JW, Zhang, Z and van Raalte, AA (2011) Life expectancy and disparity: an international comparison of life table data. BMJ Open 1(1), e000128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilmoth, JR and Horiuchi, S (1999) Rectangularization revisited: variability of age at death within human populations. Demography 36(4), 475–495.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, S, Khang, YH, Chun, H, Harper, S and Lynch, J (2012) The changing gender differences in life expectancy in Korea 1970–2005. Social Science & Medicine 75(7), 1280–1287.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, S, Khang, YH, Harper, S, Davey Smith, G, Leon, DA and Lynch, J (2010) Understanding the rapid increase in life expectancy in South Korea. American Journal of Public Health 100(5), 896–903.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, BM and Kim, J (2003) Road traffic accidents and policy interventions in Korea. Injury Control and Safety Promotion 10(1–2), 89–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zahra, A, Cheong, H-K, Lee, EW and Park, JH (2016) Burden of disease attributable to secondhand smoking in Korea. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health 28(8), 737–750.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed