Recent diverging trends in male and female disability-free life expectancies in France: a sex or a gender issue?

ABSTRACT : Our recent work on aging and health in France has highlighted an expansion of the years lived with disability within life expectancy in mid-adulthood. This unexpected trend went along with an increase in the sex differentials in disability-free life expectancy (DFLE). The female advantage in life expectancy is usually balanced by a larger share of unhealthy years, and this pattern has become more pronounced recently in France for the 50-65 age groups. This derives from differences in the type of diseases and risk factors men and women of these ages have been exposed. Gender studies suggest a possible detrimental effect of various situations related to sex specific social roles. Combinations of work and family loads might affect health, while female and male baby-boomers have experienced them differently. This presentation describes the first results of our research project on gender-specific situations and their impact on health. This threefold project explores the diseases and their disabling impact, the associations between work-family strain and health, and the potential damaging effect of specific occupational situations and trajectories. Our first results, based on several French population surveys, showed that men and women are exposed differently to detrimental situations related to gender specific social roles, at home and at work. These outcomes suggest various avenues to further explicit the social dimensions of sex differences in health.