Measuring the Long and Healthy Lives of a Nation: the Health, Aging and Gender Nexus

That a nation’s populace lives Long and Healthy Lives (LHL) is essential for its economic functioning and wellbeing. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP)’s life expectancy at birth focused LHL Index, contrary to current evidence on the health-age relationship and the health-longevity gender paradox, assumes constant health outcomes over life stage and gender divides and usually finds intertemporal improvements with superior results for women in most nations. Here, techniques that respond to ordinal data scaling critiques are developed and employed to provide indices that incorporate life stage health information. The indices are introduced in 21st Century applications to China, UK, and USA. In accord with current evidence, much variation in health outcomes over life stage and gender divides is revealed and the usual UNDP findings are reversed with intertemporal deterioration in LHL and inferior results for women, a composition effect largely the consequence of an aging population.