ABSTRACT
The headline that proclaimed “ladies last” was not referring to the gender wage gap or any of the other situations in which women are disadvantaged but rather to life expectancy (Fiegl, 2013). For longevity, women have the advantage. However, that situation is not news: Women’s survival advantage has existed for as long as life expectancy statistics have been available. Instead, the article pointed out that, in the United States, women have fallen behind men in terms of increases in life expectancy. That is, women’s life expectancy advantage is declining; between 1989 and 2009, men’s life expectancies increased by almost 5 years, whereas the increase for women was less than 3 years. This trend has chiseled away (but not eroded) women’s longevity advantage-women’s life expectancy is 81 years versus 77 years for men.
