Life expectancy
Life expectancy in Norway Life expectancy is an important health metric in a population. It gives an indication of how long a person can expect to live, assuming they live their entire life under the mortality conditions that currently apply. As such, life expectancy is a theoretical measure. In 2017, life expectancy in Norway was 84.3 years for women and 80.9 years for men (1). Figure 1 shows that life expectancy has consistently been higher for women than for men since measurements began in Norway in the mid-19th century. The difference was between 2 and 4 years until the mid-1950s, but increased to almost 7 years by the mid1980s. Since then, the difference between men and women has gradually decreased again, and was 3.4 years in 2017. From 2007 to 2017, life expectancy increased by 2.7 years for men, but by only 1.6 years for women. This can be explained, for example, by the different “smoking careers” of men and women. While smoking among men increased until the mid-1950s before subsequently declining, the increase among women was slower and only began to diminish at the end of the 1990s; see figure 2. In addition, men born before 1950 began smoking earlier in life than women born in the same years. As the age at smoking cessation was around the same for both sexes, males born before 1950 had a much greater exposure to cigarettes than their female counterparts. Smoking-related deaths are therefore much higher for men than for women born in these year-groups. For men and women born after 1950, and particularly after 1960, the duration of their smoking careers was quite similar for both sexes (7). A survey among 30 European countries from 2003–2005 showed that slightly over 40 per cent of gender differences in mortality (excessive male mortality) could be ascribed to smoking (8). The difference is probably somewhat less today.
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