Gender differences in illhealth in Finland: patterns, magnitude and change

The common wisdom about gender differences in illhealth has been encapsulat ed in the phrase "women are sicker, but men die quicker". Recently this wis dom has been increasingly questioned. The purpose of this study is first to analyse the patterns and magnitude of gender differences across various in dicators of illhealth; second to examine changes over time in these differe nces and third to assess whether sociodemographic and socioeconomic, family status and social network determinants have any bearing on the differences . The data derive from nationally representative 1986 and 1994 Surveys on L iving Conditions in Finland. Women showed poorer health for five out of eig ht indicators analysed; that is somatic symptoms, mental symptoms, disabili ty among those 50 years or older, long-standing illness and limiting long-s tanding illness were more prevalent among women than men. Male excess was f ound for perceived health below good and extremely limiting long-standing i llness among those 50 years or older. However, the male excess was statisti cally significant only for poor perceived health among those 50 years or ol der. Adjusting for a number of suggested determinants of health had a negli gible effect on gender differences. Further analyses showed that gender dif ferences in illhealth remained largely stable over the eight year study per iod which saw a steep increase of unemployment for both genders. Only in th e case of mental and somatic symptoms have gender differences declined, wit h a simultaneous increase in the prevalence of such symptoms. Otherwise gen der differences in illhealth turned out to be resistant to the deep labour market crisis over this relatively short period of time. Although women had poorer health than men for a number of health indicators, we also find gen der equality and even male excess for some indicators. Furthermore, the res ults suggest that a male excess in illhealth is likely to be found with mor e severe domains of illhealth among elderly people. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scien ce Ltd. All rights reserved.