MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? - Tartu Ülikool

TERVIS JA TÖÖVÕIME HEALTH AND CAPACITY FOR WORK
men than women assess their health as good. The same applies to poor health assessments –
until the age of 64 the proportion of women with poor health is lower than the proportion of men
and after the age of 65 the proportion of women with poor health exceeds that of men.
Marital status also affects assessments of health status, although marital status itself is affected
by age, because single people are usually young and do not have health problems yet, whereas
widowed persons are mostly elderly people who probably experience more health-related
problems. Health assessments are very similar in case of single men and women – about three
quarters of both single men and women assess their health as good or very good, and 7% of
single men and 5% of single women consider their health as bad. Slightly less than a half of
married men and a little more than a half of married women assess their health status as good,
and 14% of men and 12% of women consider it to be bad. A little less than a half of both divorced
men and women have good health, and 15% of men and 13% of women have bad health. Health
assessments are very similar in case of married and divorced men. The results are similar also in
case of married and divorced women, but married women tend to give somewhat better
assessment to their health status. The worst health status was reported by widowed persons, as
their average age is higher than that of the other groups. As for widowed persons, 18% of men
and 15% of women are in rather good health, 34% of men and 38% of women are in poor health.
(Figure 8)
The impact of education on health assessments is revealed by the fact that, the higher the
education, the better the assessment of health status. People with higher education have wider
outlook and hence can apparently take better care of their health. Men and women with higher
education provide similar assessment of health – 60% of men and 62% of women with higher
education assess their health as good. Men and women have slightly different assessments in
case of secondary education. Good health is reported by men with secondary education almost
as much (57%) as by men with higher education, but approximately a half of the women with
secondary education are reportedly in good health. At the same time, there are more people with
poor health among people with secondary education than among people with higher education.
The greatest differences are found when comparing the health assessments of men and women
with either primary or basic education. A little more than a half of men with primary or basic
education assess their health as good, whereas the same assessment is provided by only a little
over one third of women. Rather extensive proportion of women with primary or basic education
reported having bad health – almost one third. (Figure 9)
Living in a city or in the country has no significant effect on the assessments of health status. The
results are rather similar for men and women. The only difference is that more men in good
health live in cities and more men in poor health live in the country, but the proportion of women
in good health is equal both in cities and in the country.
Estonians consider their health status to be better than non-Estonians. The assessments of
health status are relatively similar in case of Estonian and non-Estonian men, but there is a larger
difference in the assessments of health status provided by Estonian and non-Estonian women.
More than a half of Estonian women and less than a half of non-Estonian women assess their
health status as good. Also, more non-Estonian than Estonian women have assessed their health
as average or bad. Comparison of Estonian men and women reveals that the results are quite
similar, although the number of men considering their health to be good or very good is by three
percentage points higher than that of women. Health assessments by non-Estonian men and
women show larger differences. The proportion of non-Estonian men in good health exceeds the
proportion of non-Estonian women in good health by ten percentage points. (Figure 10)
Income has also a significant impact on health assessment. The lower the income, the poorer the
assessment of health, and vice versa – the higher the income, the better the assessment of
health. However, here the effect may work both ways, i.e. income is lower due to poor health, as
poor health makes it more difficult to find and keep a suitable job. Poor health is also
characteristic of the elderly, who also tend to have lower income than the working population.
Health assessment differences between men and women by income are rather small, i.e. no wide
sex-specific differences are found here. (Figure 11)
MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? MAN’S HOME IS THE WORLD, WOMAN’S WORLD IS HER HOME? 53