Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the reasons for the disparities in life expectancy between women and men.

Life expectancy in England is the highest it has ever been for both males and females. Women continue to live longer than men, as they do around the world, but the gap is reducing.

The difference in life expectancy at birth in England between males and females has decreased in every time period between 2001-03 and 2015-17. Over the past decade, the gap between male and female life expectancy at birth has narrowed from 4.1 years in 2006-08 to 3.6 years in 2016-18. Men experience higher mortality rates for some leading causes of death, including circulatory disease and cancer, which contribute to this difference in life expectancy.