Since 1960, countries such as Afghanistan and India, which were characterised by lagre gender differences in life expectancy, have almost closed the gap. This can also be seen in the statistics for South and Southeast Asia, which move from a more than 1-year difference in life expectancy in favour of men in 1900 (28.92 compared to 27.66) to almost four years in favour of women in 2000 (65.3 compared to 69.3). It becomes immediately evident that the regions that have made the most progress in increasing both female and male life expectancy are the MENA, East Asia, and South and Southeast Asia. In East Asia and South and Southeast Asia, the progress in the life expectancy of women was more rapid than that of men.