[Differences of life expectancy between men and women in selected countries].

This study deals with the development of differences in life expectancy at birth between men and women since the 1950s. With the help of model curves and standardized differences in the medium life span of 65 years, the author tries to estimate the share of biological and social conditioning of sex differentials in life expectancy for 23 developed countries. The growth of different in life expectancy between men and women was originally caused by mortality discrepancies up to 65 years old, stabilizing at values around 3 years. In most developed countries, these differences have declined. Most recently, the growth of differences in life span was caused by mortality differentials after 65 years of age; these now oscillate around 4 years. The total difference obviously will not permanently exceed the limit of 8 years. The biological conditioning of differential mortality between men and women is probably very low and does not cause more than 1 year of discrepancy.