استقلال ملی، مشارکت سیاسی زنان، و امید به زندگی در نروژ

This study investigates the role of national independence and women's political participation on population health using historical lifespan data from Norway. We use time-series methods to analyze data measuring the actual length of time lived by Norwegian birth cohorts spanning a 61 year period surrounding the political emancipation of Norway from Sweden in 1905 and the establishment of a Norwegian monarchy in 1906. The use of a discrete, historical event improves our ability to interpret the population health effects of national independence and women's political participation as causal. We find a large and significant positive effect on the lifespan of Norwegian females born in the 1906 cohort. Interestingly, the effect does not extend to all living females during the Norwegian drive toward sovereignty. We conclude that the beneficial effects were likely conferred through intrauterine biological transfers and/or neonatal investments specific to the first year of life.

Recent research documents a robust, positive correlation between civic participation and life expectancy. This observed relationship appears to exist on multiple ecological scales; i.e., across provinces (Young & Lyson, 2001), states (Kawachi, Kennedy, Gupta, & Prothrow-Stith, 1999), and nations (Young, 2001). The relationship between civic engagement and life expectancy has received considerable attention in part because it connects political and social processes that are not usually thought of as direct determinants of health with a robust (albeit cumulative and multi-causal) indicator of human health. Popular participation in political processes may also indicate or correlate with the presence of collective identity, social capital, and collective efficacy and their apparent salutary impact on the male and female lifespan via access to services, social support, or more direct effects on health risk behaviors (Skrabski, Kopp, & Kawachi, 2004). Furthermore, participation in civic or political process is assumed to index individual characteristics that health psychologists have long associated with positive health outcomes, such as perceived control and self-efficacy. These psychological characteristics have been linked with better health behaviors (Burns & Dillon, 2005) as well as lower physiological stress (Sapolsky, 1999).