Female life expectancy, by contrast, has tended to be more stable, dropping from 74.4 in 1990 to 71.2 in 1994, or a loss of about two years. It peaked in 1997 at 72.96 years and subsequently fluctuated at lower levels, reaching 72.4

years in 2000 9 (13) and 72.1 years in 2001.

In the case of both male and female life expectancies, the bottom was reached in 1994, and both, particularly women, recovered much of the lost ground in the latter half of the 1990s (17), although these gains have reversed since 1998.

A striking issue concerns the size of the gender gap, which has long been the largest in Europe. This peaked at 13.6 years in 1994, when both female and male life expectancies bottomed, due to the far greater loss of years of male life expectancy. More recently (2000) it stands at 13.2 years. However it should be noted that, while Russian women live much longer than their male counterparts, they have very high levels of poor health, so that healthy life

expectancy is surprisingly similar for both men and women.

«Социально-экономическое положение России. Январь-август 2006 г.» VIII. – Росстат, 2006.