ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author describes what can be seen as the neglect of gender as a dimension in research on social inequalities in health. She attempts to bring gender back into the field of health inequalities, using as a focus recently available data on life expectancy among men and women in different European countries. The data summarized have a number of implications both for our understanding of the social determinants of health and longevity and for our ideas about the equitable distribution of health care and other resources. Gender differences in longevity were reported matter of factly and no comment or speculation offered as to the determinants of these differences. The mean values given for Eastern and Western European countries, and for male as compared to female life expectancy, are not weighted for population size so can only be a crude indication, in particular of East/West differences.