The Secretary General of the Higher Population Council Dr. Abla Amawi affirmed that Jordan has not actually declined on the global classification of “Health and Survival” in the Global Gender Gap Report for the year 2021 and which is considered one of the four key areas measured by the Global Gender Gap Report issued by the World Economic Forum. The Report showed that Jordan ranks in 145th place in 2021 after ranking in 103rd place in 2020 in this area.
Amawi explained that the Report measures “Health and Survival” through two indicators; the sex ratio at birth (female/male) and the healthy life expectancy rate at birth. Amawi reflected that Jordan had achieved the complete equality mark between the two sexes when it comes to the first indicator and which is at 0.944)) percent, according to the last four Gender Gap Reports (2017, 2018, 2020, 2021). Jordan’s ranking therefore has come first between the countries included in these reports and which could be attributed to the constraints Jordan has on abortion, as allowed abortion cases are limited to involuntary abortions (miscarriages) and legal voluntary abortions (medical abortions) caused by medical reasons such as disposing of a dead fetus in the mother’s womb, saving a mother’s life in case of continued pregnancy complications or congenital malformations which a fetus could not live with post-birth (and which needs a fatwa). Other abortions that fall within illegal voluntary abortions are forbidden and criminalized and not permitted in Jordan.
As to the second indicator concerning the healthy life expectancy at birth rate and which refers to the number of years an individual is expected to live a full healthy life while taking into consideration the years an individual lives a less than fully healthy life as a result of illness or injury, Amawi explained that according to the last two Global Gender Gap Reports (2020, 2021) Jordan’s rank has declined in this indicator from (112 out of 138 countries) in 2020 to (153 out of 156 countries) in 2021. This is what has negatively affected Jordan’s global ranking in the area of “Health and Survival”.
Amawi added that while tracking the values of the healthy life expectancy at birth rate which the Gender Gap Reports of (2018, 2020, 2021) relied on and the corresponding facts from the Global Health Observatory 2020 database, it is apparent that the (2018 and 2020) Global Gender Gap Reports relied on the 2016 Jordan healthy life expectancy at birth rate, which was prepared by the World Health Organization, and then transitioned to rely on the 2019 value of this indicator in its 2021 report and which was published on the Global Health Observatory’s database prepared by the World Health Organization (series updated 2020). The Observatory acknowledges in its posts that the new estimations in this series is incomparable to the estimations previously released by the World Health Organization. Therefore, the direction of the values of the healthy life expectancy at birth rate for females in the two Gender Gap Reports (2018 and 2020) differs from the 2021 report which used an updated series of the 2020 World Health Organization estimated values.
She also indicated that accordingly, the transition from using the 2016 healthy life expectancy at birth rate, which is unified in the (2018 and 2020) Gender Gap Reports to the 2019 healthy life expectancy at birth rate on the basis of a 2020 updated series to express Jordan’s situation in this indicator in the 2021 Gap Report was the reason for Jordan’s decline in rank in this indicator. She explained that Jordan’s grade in 2020 was (1.032) and declined in 2021 to (0.9868), while the healthy life expectancy at birth rate for both sexes remained stable during the years (2015-2019). This means there was no change between the healthy life expectancy at birth rate of males and females during this time period, as the healthy life expectancy at birth rate remained at (68.06 for males and 67.17 for females) for the years 2015 and 2019 and that the decline was caused by the employment of a new and completely different updated series of values than the previous series.
Amawi explained, in terms of the gender gap in the healthy life expectancy at birth rate, that the numbers and statistics show that between the years 2000 and 2019, the healthy life expectancy at birth rate for both sexes together increased from 63.6 years in 2000 to 67.6 years in 2019. The 2019 global healthy life expectancy at birth rate was at around 63.7 years. For males in Jordan, the number went from 64.95 years in 2000 to 68.06 years in 2019, while globally it was at 62.5 years in 2019. For females in Jordan, the number went from 62.27 years in 2000 to 67.17 years in 2019, compared to 64.9 years globally in 2019. She indicated that the healthy life expectancy at birth rate in Jordan exceeds its 2019 global equivalent for both sexes. The numbers also show that females in Jordan enjoy a less hypothetically healthy life expectancy at birth rate than males which reflects a primary issue and which is that females in Jordan spend longer years than males in unhealthy situations.
Amawi also affirmed the necessity of focusing the preventive efforts for communicable diseases for both sexes. The World Health Organization’s 2019 estimations of the burden of disease in Jordan, using the number of healthy years lost due to incapacitation, illness or death according to reason and sex, indicates that communicable diseases accounted for the main reason for the loss of healthy years due to incapacitation or death for both sexes, but it had a bigger effect on females. It was responsible for 76.9 percent of the healthy years lost for females compared to the 67.9 percent for males and between and the first ten main reasons responsible for the loss of healthy years due to incapacitation, illness or death in Jordan, 8 of them for females and 7 for males were due to communicable diseases.