Men set to live as long as women, figures show [View all]

The gap between male and female life expectancy is closing and men could catch up by 2030, according to an adviser for the Office for National Statistics.

Prof Les Mayhew said the difference between the sexes peaked at nearly six years in the 1970s.

Life expectancy is going up all round, but the rates for men are increasing faster.

Plummeting smoking rates in men are thought to explain a lot of the change.

Prof Mayhew, a professor of statistics at Cass Business School, analysed life expectancy data in England and Wales. He was working out how long 30-year-olds could expect to live.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17811732

I sincerely doubt it will ever catch up. The main thrust behind this seems to be that men are quitting smoking while women are starting (on average). This will necessarily lengthen men's lives while reducing women's.

Reducing the incidence of smoking is a fairly easy issue to address and that would then increase female longevity in the future.

The issues that lead to males living shorter lives are heavily ingrained societal beliefs and thus are less easily addressed. Ie: the general assumption of disposability leading to higher rates of suicide, drug abuse, homelessness, dangerous occupations, incarceration, death in wars, etc and significantly lower social spending per male to combat these problems than per female. Additionally an education system that seems to view boys as a problem to address leading to higher rates of drop outs and being shunted in to disciplinary/special education classrooms (lower education levels lead to poverty and that leads to shorter lives). And as of this moment there doesn't seem to be any interest in addressing any of these issues.

However I think this is an noteworthy trend.