Russia: Socioeconomic Dimensions of the Gender Gap in Mortality

Abstract
Russia experienced a steep mortality increase after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the liberalization of prices in 1992. The existing evidence suggests that the health crisis of the early 1990s can be related to certain socioeconomic and socio-psychological factors such as labor market shocks and stresses, growing income inequalities and relative deprivation, lack of law and order, and decline of social cohesion. One striking development, however, was that the mortality trends in Russia were comparatively worse for men than for women. By the mid-1990s, the gender gap in life expectancy at birth exceeded thirteen years and was at a level approximately double that of other industrialized countries, and four years greater than it was in Russia in the 1960s. This chapter provides an analysis of the socioeconomic dimensions of this gender gap to reveal underlying causes and consequences.