Understanding the Gap between Females and Males in Life Expectancy in Cuba

Madelín Gómez León, Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED)
Esther María León Díaz, Oficina Nacional de Estadisticas, Cuba

The paper analyses the case of Cuba, who experienced high life expectancy (80 years old for females and 76 years for males in 2006) but lower sex differential. Who is the responsible for this low sex differential, is it because males are doing better and catching up female’s survival, or is it because females are worsening theirs? Given the increasing importance of mortality at older ages to the life expectancy, we also explore what had happened in the sex differential after age 60, and the contributions of the main causes of death. Data of population and specific death rates published by National Statistic Office and Public Health Ministry of Cuba will be used. We will apply the decomposition method (Shkolnikov et al, 2001) to determine the role of age and cause specific-death rates over the sex differential in two periods in time, from 1986 to 1996, and 1996 to 2006.