Role of Gender in Health Disparity: The South Asian Context

South Asia's girls and women do not have the same life advantage as their Western counterparts. A human rights based approach may help to overcome gender related barriers and improve the wellbeing of men, women, and children. Behaviour has an important role in health disparities—for example, young men take greater risks, causing injury and violent death, and men smoke more. In industrialised countries women are born with an advantage; their healthy life expectancy is two years longer and their life expectancy six years longer than those of men. This advantage is prominent in childhood; girls are more likely to survive the first five years of life than boys. However, does this female advantage endure in parts of the world where gender discrimination exists? We present the case of South Asia to illustrate the role that gender has on health.