A higher mortality among men in the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, only partly explains why populations in this region have more women, American think tank Pew Research Center found in a study published on Aug. 14.
Citing
United Nations data, the research center found that although the global
population is majority male, the gender ratio in Ukraine is 86.3 men per 100
women, with other former Soviet nations being similarly low – for example, Russia
currently has 86.8 men per 100 women.
Ukraine’s
State Statistics Service also states that there were 3.4 million more women
than men in Ukraine last year within an overall population of 45.4 million.
Several
factors set the former Soviet bloc apart and provide insight to why women
outlive men in Ukrainian society.
The former
USSR as a whole is older than that of the world, Pew noted, and women tend to
live longer as populations age. That coupled with lower fertility rates than
the rest of the world skews the population’s gender ratio.
Historically,
the former Soviet Union also had a lot more women than men. The main reason is
the huge losses that the Red Army incurred during the Second World War, with most
of the casualties being men. As a result, the sex repartition of the population
was heavily affected. Five years after the war ended in 1950, there were only
75 men for 100 women in what is current-day Ukraine, according to the U.N. This
gap progressively narrowed through the years until 1997 when it reached its
minimum value of 87.3 men per 100 women.
Evolution of the sex ratio in Ukraine between 1950 and 2015. Source : United Nations, DESA, World Population Prospects: the 2015 Revision
The
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 put an end to this evolution. Between 1991
and 2015, the Ukrainian population has continually decreased, and from 1997 to
2011, the proportion of men in the overall population has decreased, for the
first time since WWII.
Men’s
mortality is 24 percent higher than women in Ukraine, according to the World
Health Organization, with the life expectancy gap between men and women being one
of the highest in the world. A girl born in Ukraine between 2010 and 2015 can
expect to live on average 75.7 years, while a boy may only live to 65.7 years –
a gap of 10 years, while the world average is only four.
The gap
between the proportion of men and women in Ukraine partially explains this, as
the Ukrainian population as a whole is quite old, with an average of 40.3 years
while the world average is 29.6, and women live significantly longer.
Health
issues also play a crucial role. The Pew Research Institute found that
alcohol-related incidents in the former Soviet Union contribute to the low life
expectancy, including suicide and diseases. In Ukraine in 2011, the mortality rate
of men for alcohol-use disorders was nine times higher than for women, the
suicide rate, six times, according to the World Health Organization.
The
perception of alcohol consumption is different between men and women, the study
found. A 2013 Pew Research Center poll conducted in Russia showed that drinking
alcohol was not morally acceptable for 52 percent of women, and only for 36
percent of men.
Risky
behaviors are another factor. Deaths linked to unintentional injuries – mainly
poisoning and road traffic accidents – were 4.5 times higher for men. Thus, the
Pew Research Center notes that “younger men in the former Soviet Union … have
an unusual high mortality rate.”
Since the
Soviet Union collapsed, life expectancy has starkly decreased overall in
Ukraine by 4.1 years for men through the 1990s and by 1.6 for women.
Evolution of life expectancy at birth in Ukraine and average in developed countries between 1950 and 2015. Source : United Nations, DESA, World Population Prospects: the 2015 Revision
Kyiv Post staff writer Yves Souben can be reached at
[email protected]
