2006 is likely to be the first year in human history when,
across almost all the world, women can expect to outlive men,
say researchers from the University of Bristol and the
University of Sheffield in this week's BMJ. The trend towards
this remarkable achievement will probably be confirmed this week
in the 2006 world health report. "We tend to forget that in many
countries of the world women could expect, until recently, to
live fewer years than men and that maternal death in particular
remains a big killer," write Professor George Davey Smith of the
University’s Department of Social Medicine and colleagues. In
Europe, men last outlived women in the Netherlands in 1860 and
in Italy in 1889. Elsewhere females' life expectancy has long
exceeded males': in Sweden since 1751, Denmark since 1835,
England and Wales since 1841. But in all western European
countries the life expectancy gap between women and men is now
narrowing. Greater emancipation has freed women to demand better
health care and to behave more li