Women Living Longer but Not Necessarily Better

AROUND the world women are marrying later, having fewer children, and living longer. “Women’s lives are changing,” reports the magazine UNESCO Sources. Between 1970 and 1990, women’s life expectancy at birth increased by four years in the developed world and by nearly nine years in developing countries. “This means that in the developed regions today, women live an average 6.5 years longer than men. In the developing regions the difference is five years in Latin America and the Caribbean, 3.5 years in Africa and three years in Asia and the Pacific.”

Nevertheless, for many women, living longer does not mean living better. Our Planet, a magazine of the United Nations, notes that for a majority of the world’s women, basic human rights are still “the icing on the cake they have never tasted. They still seek plain ordinary bread and water.” Yet, even basics, says the UN, are beyond the grasp of millions because still the overwhelming majority of all the world’s illiterates, refugees, and poor people are women. Despite some advances, concludes UNESCO Sources, “the big picture for women . . . looks bleak.”