IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc16/145570.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Disentangling the Gender Gap in Longevity

Author

Listed:
  • Trimborn, Timo
  • Schünemann, Johannes
  • Strulik, Holger

Abstract

In developed countries, women are expected to live about 4-5 years longer than men. In this paper we develop a novel approach in order to gauge to what extent gender health differences in longevity can be attributed to gender-specific preferences and health behavior. For that purpose we set up a physiologically founded model of health deficit accumulation and calibrate it using recent insights from gerontology. From fitting life cycle health expenditure and life expectancy we obtain estimates of the gender-specific preference parameters. We then perform the counterfactual experiment of endowing women with the preferences of men. In our benchmark scenario this reduces the gender gap in life expectancy from 4.6 to 2.1 years, suggesting that 54 percent of women's superior longevity can be attributed to preferences and health behavior. When we add gender-specific preferences for unhealthy consumption, the model can motivate up to 91 percent of the gender gap. Our theory explains also why the gender gap narrows with rising income.

Suggested Citation

  • Trimborn, Timo & Schünemann, Johannes & Strulik, Holger, 2016. "Disentangling the Gender Gap in Longevity," Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145570, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/145570/1/VfS_2016_pid_6425.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anne Case & Angus S. Deaton, 2005. "Broken Down by Work and Sex: How Our Health Declines," NBER Chapters, in: Analyses in the Economics of Aging, pages 185-212, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Marc Luy, 2003. "Causes of Male Excess Mortality: Insights from Cloistered Populations," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(4), pages 647-676, December.
    3. Trimborn, Timo & Koch, Karl-Josef & Steger, Thomas M., 2008. "Multidimensional Transitional Dynamics: A Simple Numerical Procedure," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 301-319, June.
    4. Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2013. "Long-run trends of human aging and longevity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1303-1323, October.
    5. Raj Chetty, 2006. "A New Method of Estimating Risk Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1821-1834, December.
    6. Strulik, Holger, 2011. "Health and Education: Understanding the Gradient," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-487, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    7. Jones, Charles I & Williams, John C, 2000. "Too Much of a Good Thing? The Economics of Investment in R&D," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 65-85, March.
    8. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2014. "Optimal Aging And Death: Understanding The Preston Curve," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 672-701, June.
    9. Amy Finkelstein & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2013. "What Good Is Wealth Without Health? The Effect Of Health On The Marginal Utility Of Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 221-258, January.
    10. Timo Trimborn & Karl-Josef Koch & Thomas Steger, 2006. "Multi-Dimensional Transitional Dynamics: A Simple Numberical Procedure," CESifo Working Paper Series 1745, CESifo Group Munich.
    11. Alma Cohen & Liran Einav, 2007. "Estimating Risk Preferences from Deductible Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 745-788, June.
    12. Samuel Preston & Haidong Wang, 2006. "Sex mortality differences in The United States: The role of cohort smoking patterns," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(4), pages 631-646, November.
    13. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 2007. "The Value of Life and the Rise in Health Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 122(1), pages 39-72.
    14. Grossmann, Volker & Strulik, Holger, 2015. "Optimal social insurance and health inequality," FSES Working Papers 464, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland.
    15. Bird, Chloe E. & Rieker, Patricia P., 1999. "Gender matters: an integrated model for understanding men's and women's health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 745-755, March.
    16. Schünemann, Johannes & Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2017. "Going from bad to worse: Adaptation to poor health health spending, longevity, and the value of life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 130-146.
    17. Ehrlich, Isaac & Chuma, Hiroyuki, 1990. "A Model of the Demand for Longevity and the Value of Life Extension," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 761-782, August.
    18. Macintyre, Sally & Ford, Graeme & Hunt, Kate, 1999. "Do women 'over-report' morbidity? Men's and women's responses to structured prompting on a standard question on long standing illness," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 89-98, January.
    19. repec:eee:joecag:v:6:y:2015:i:c:p:5-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Holger STRULIK, 2015. "A Closed-form Solution for the Health Capital Model," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(3), pages 301-316, September.
    21. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    22. Vegard Skirbekk, 2004. "Age and Individual Productivity: A Literature Survey," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 2(1), pages 133-154.
    23. Chaloupka, Frank J. & Warner, Kenneth E., 2000. "The economics of smoking," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 29, pages 1539-1627, Elsevier.
    24. repec:cup:jdemec:v:81:y:2015:i:03:p:301-316_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    26. Grossman, Michael, 2000. "The human capital model," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 347-408, Elsevier.
    27. Volker Grossmann & Holger Strulik, 2015. "Optimal Social Insurance and Health Inequality," CESifo Working Paper Series 5604, CESifo Group Munich.
    28. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2017. "The Genesis of the Golden Age: Accounting for the Rise in Health and Leisure," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 132-151, March.
    29. Arthur J. Robson & Hillard S. Kaplan, 2007. "Why do We Die? Economics, Biology and Aging," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 492-495, May.
    30. Forster, Martin, 2001. "The meaning of death: some simulations of a model of healthy and unhealthy consumption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 613-638, July.
    31. Waldron, Ingrid, 1993. "Recent trends in sex mortality ratios for adults in developed countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 451-462, February.
    32. repec:bla:germec:v:20:y:2019:i:4:p:e913-e948 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:zbw:vfsc16:145570. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.