Gender and health in rural China: evidence from HeBei province

Gender differences in health and health behavior are well established in Western societies, but little is known about gender health inequalities in rural China. We examine patterns of age-sex differences in health and health behavior of men and women in rural HeBei, People's Republic of China,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science & medicine (1982) 2002-09, Vol.55 (6), p.1039-1054
Main Authors: Anson, Ofra, Sun, Shifang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age Differences
Aged
Analysis. Health state
Biological and medical sciences
China
China - epidemiology
China Gender Rural health
Epidemiology
Europe - epidemiology
Family Characteristics
Female
Gender
Gender differentiation
Gender inequalities
General aspects
Health
Health Behavior
Health care
Health inequality
Health Status Indicators
Humans
Inequality
Interviews as Topic
Male
Medical sciences
Medicine
Middle Aged
North America - epidemiology
Peoples Republic of China
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Risk Factors
Risk-Taking
Rural areas
Rural Health
Rural life
Rural Population
Sex Differences
Sex Factors
Social sciences
Socioeconomic Factors
Tropical medicine
Women's Health
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Summary:Gender differences in health and health behavior are well established in Western societies, but little is known about gender health inequalities in rural China. We examine patterns of age-sex differences in health and health behavior of men and women in rural HeBei, People's Republic of China, and consider the extent to which these patterns resemble gender health inequalities observed in North America and Western Europe. The data analyzed were collected from 14,895 individuals residing in 288 villages in the HeBei Province. The results show that gender differences emerged at a later age than generally reported in Western societies. Poorer health among women, as compared with men, becomes observable during young adulthood (25–44) rather than at adolescence, and reached its peak among older adults (45–59) rather than during the productive and reproductive stage of the life course. Among the elderly, the differences between the health and the health behavior of men and women narrowed, similar to many reports in North America and Western Europe. Most importantly, no gender differences in mental health were observed. These findings suggest that the older adult age group (45–59) may be appropriate for interdisciplinary efforts to advance the understanding regarding the relative contributions of nature and nurture to gender differences in health.
ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/S0277-9536(01)00227-1