Also, the position of women in these societies is often not good, Less care is given to female children, and they have a higher risk for reproductive deaths than in other countries. East Asia China has 20 percent of the world population, so that it is of major significance that the Chinese have a fairly good healthy life expectancy, at 62.3 years, 63.3 years for women and 61.2 for men. This is one of the widest sex gaps in the world. The most common explanation is the high incidence of male alcohol abuse, which led to high rates of accidents, violence and cardiovascular disease. Since 1994, life expectancy has been improving for males.
Similar rates exist for other major countries of the former Soviet Union.
In Ukraine, female babies can expect to live an equivalent of 67.5 years of healthy life versus 58.5 years for male babies. In Belarus, the rates are 67.2 years for female babies and 56.2 years for male babies. Viet Nam has been improving dramatically in health profiles and healthy life expectancy, rising to 58.2 years, while Thailand has not improved significantly over the past decade, though it is still ahead of Viet Nam at 60.2 years. Myanmar has not done very well, with a healthy life expectancy of just 52 years, substantially behind its Southeast Asian neighbors. This shows that even countries with the same levels of income can have very different healthy life expectancies.