Women will continue to outlive men in EU: Report

Brussels, Mar 7: Women will continue to outlive men in the European Union over the next 40 years as female life expectancy across the bloc tops 80 years in 2050, figures released showed.

But the report from EU statistics office Eurostat, released to mark International Women's Day on Thursday, said the gap between the life expectancy of men and women ''is expected to narrow each year in almost all member states''.

In 2005, women died on average between the ages of 75 in Romania and 83 in Spain, while men lived on average to 75. This will increase to a life expectancy for women of between 84 in Romania and 90 in France in 2050, Eurostat said yesterday.

It said the difference between men and women in 2005 was around six years.

''The highest differences were in Lithuania and Latvia of 12 years and the lowest were in Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Malta of four years,'' it said.

''In 2050, life expectancy is expected to increase for both men and women ... with differences narrowing between males and females, ranging from three years in Denmark and Malta to eight years in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.'' Women made up 59 per cent of citizens aged 65 years or over in 2005, but that is expected to fall to 55 per cent in 2050.

The survey -- carried out in the fields of demography, education and employment -- also showed that Ireland and France topped the fertility charts.

Greece and the Czech Republic had the lowest fertility rates, Eurostat figures for the end of 2005 showed.

The unemployment rate for women in January of this year came to 8.5 per cent compared to 6.7 per cent for men, the report said.

It was higher for women in all states of the 27-country EU except Britain, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

Just over 30 per cent of women who had a job in the second half of 2006 worked part-time, compared to just under eight per cent of men. Nearly 15 percent of women across the EU were employed on a temporary basis, the report said.

Romania, Estonia and Lithuania had the lowest shares of female temporary workers, while Spain, Poland and Finland topped that table.

Reuters