Are American Women more deprived than Men?

American men experience higher premature mortality than women, while women are poorer. These gender inequalities are substantially different across racial groups. Based on these facts, I explore in this paper two complementary questions. First, what is the most disadvantaged gender group when combining poverty and mortality data? Second, are there racial disparities in the pattern of gender inequalities in total deprivation? This study uses the generated deprivation index, a novel indicator that aggregates poverty and mortality as components of total deprivation, to answer those questions. Two main conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, since the 1990s, men and women have been experiencing very similar total deprivation rates, whereas, before then, men were more deprived than women. The reduction of the gender gap in mortality combined with the lack of significant progress in the gender inequality in income poverty resulted in a steeper decline in total deprivation among men. Second, this near gender equality in total deprivation hides sizable disparities across races. The gender gap against women is higher for Hispanics and Blacks compared to Whites Non-Hispanics. This finding suggests that women in Minorities face more severe racial penalties than men.