Women still predicted to outlive men – report

Life expectancy at birth in Barbados continues to be higher among women.

According to the flagship State of the World Population report released on Wednesday by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), life expectancy for Barbadians was 79.5 years on average, with men expected to live to age 78 and women, 81.

Up to 2018, life expectancy at birth in Barbados was estimated by the World Bank at 79 years, with males estimated to live on average to the age of 77.7 and females until 80.4 years.

The new UNFP report, which puts the island’s population at 300,000 this year, said between 2015 and 2020, the population was estimated to have grown 0.1 per cent.

The life expectancy rate for men in Barbados was higher than the world average (71 per cent), the average for the most developed regions (77 per cent), less developed regions (69 per cent) and least develop countries (64 per cent).

The average life expectancy rate for women globally for 2021 is estimated at 75 per cent, while the average in more developed regions was estimated to be 83 per cent; for less developed regions 74 per cent and for least developed countries 68 per cent.

The report also gave a breakdown of the population segment for this year, estimating that the majority of the Barbados population, 66.3 per cent, was between the ages of 15 and 64 years.

It said 17.2 per cent of the population was made up of people aged 65 or older, while 16.6 per cent was made up of individuals between zero and 14 years.

Further dissecting overlapping age groups, the report said people aged 10 to 19 years accounted for 12.5 per cent of the population, and those aged 10 to 24 years accounted for 19 per cent.

The report put the total fertility rate at 1.6 for this year.

This is the number of children who would be born per woman if she lived to the end of her childbearing years.

When it came to the four broad topics and 13 components that were tracked by “indicator 5.6.2” in the report, Barbados received a score of 44 out of 100. The four broad topics are contraception and family planning, sexual health and wellbeing, maternity care, and comprehensive sexual education, for which Barbados scored an average of 20, 65, 63, and zero, respectively.

This indicator 5.6.2 captures information on the existence of a supportive law and also on some additional factors that might impede that law’s positive impact, according to the report.

“Data on all of these aspects are used to calculate a value for each country for each of the 13 components, which are then aggregated up to the four broad topics and then to an overall value,” it explained.

Among all countries that reported data for this indicator, the five countries with the highest overall value were Sweden (100), Uruguay (99), Cambodia (98), Finland (98) and the Netherlands (98). The five countries with the lowest values are South Sudan (16), Trinidad and Tobago (32), Libya (33), Iraq (39) and Belize (42).

“Overall values for indicator 5.6.2 shows that the existence of supportive sexual and reproductive health laws and regulations does not depend on a country’s income level,” said the report, which placed Barbados as a high-income country.

The data showed that up to 2017 Barbados was experiencing some 27 deaths per 100,000 live births.

It showed that between 2003 and 2018, the island’s adolescent birth rate per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 was 50.

“Child marriage by age 18” was estimated to be at 29 per cent between 2005 and 2019.

There were no reports of female genital mutilation and total net enrolment rate at primary and education institutions was estimated at 99 per cent.
(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)