MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? - Tartu Ülikool

TERVIS JA TÖÖVÕIME HEALTH AND CAPACITY FOR WORK
Life expectancy
Life expectancy at birth indicates the probable duration of an infant’s life if it were subject to the
mortality indicators applicable in the year of its birth. More men than women die at an early age
and therefore men’s life expectancy at birth is lower than that of women.
In Estonia the difference between men’s and women’s life expectancy has been more than ten
years for a long time and is one of the greatest in Europe. The difference is approximately the
same also in Latvia and Lithuania. In 2010 the life expectancy of men increased to 70 years for
the first time and at the same time the difference between the life expectancy of men and women
decreased to 9.9 years. In 2010 the life expectancy was 70.6 years for men and 80.5 years for
women (see Figure 4). The life expectancy of men has been increasing a bit more rapidly than
that of women – in 1994 life expectancy was 60.5 years for men and 72.8 years for women.
A general objective of the Public Health Development Plan is to increase life expectancy and
reduce the difference between men’s and women’s life expectancy. According to the
Development Plan, by the year 2020, life expectancy should have increased to 75 years for men
and 84 years for women. (Figure 4)
The quality of population’s health is indicated by disability free life expectancy. This indicator
reflects life expectancy without any long-term disease. Calculation of disability free life
expectancy takes into account the mortality indicators of a respective year and people’s health
assessments (good or bad), arising from the Estonian Social Survey.
Women lead disability free life longer than men (see Figure 5). The average number of disability
free life years is 54.1 years for men and 58.0 years for women born in 2010. When comparing
disability free life expectancy with life expectancy, it appears that the smaller the difference, the
longer the life without diseases, i.e. the better the quality of life. Until 2009 the difference between
life expectancy and disability free life expectancy had been in constant decline, but in 2010 it
slightly increased, as the values of disability free life expectancy dropped for both men and
women, while life expectancy continued to increase. This difference is less prominent among
men than women (see Figure 6). This means that although women live longer than men and lead
a longer disability free life, they still have health problems for a longer time than men.
Health assessments
Assessment of public health may be based on the statistics of morbidity and mortality, but these
numbers do not indicate how people assess their own health. According to the Estonian Social
Survey, people’s self-assessments of their health status have not generally changed much during
2004–2010, yet they have still improved. Both among men and women there is an increase in the
proportion of people with good self-assessment of their health. (Figure 7)
Women do live longer than men and they also have more disability free years of life than men,
but when comparing the self-assessments of their health status, men tend to consider their health
to be slightly better than women. In 2010 a total of 59% of men and 52% of women at the age of
16 and older assessed their health status either as good or very good. Women assess their
health as bad more frequently than men. In 2010 health was considered bad or very bad by
16% of women and 12% of men.
Assessments of health status reached their highest values in 2008, the year of the onset of
economic crisis, when it had not affected many people yet. Next year, however, the assessments
of health status dropped and increased again a little in 2010. The crisis had the greatest impact
first and foremost on the younger working age people, aged 34 years and younger, as in
2008 more men and women were in good health, but in 2009 these proportions dropped rapidly.
As the age advances, many people start having health problems and it is only logical that their
assessments of own health status also aggravate. In general, the differences between age
groups of men and women reveal that in younger age groups there are more women with good
health assessment than men. At an advanced age, starting from the age of 65 and older, more
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MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? MAN’S HOME IS THE WORLD, WOMAN’S WORLD IS HER HOME?