Looking more closely at the table (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content-nw/full/168/12/1353/TBL1), I get the impression that the groups being compared are rather different (e.g., Lowest socioeconomic status 11.4% to 29.6%), so that may not be a valid comparison of sleep duration in the countries as a whole. Here's the article from which the table was
taken.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/168/12/1353#TBL1
An official report published last week here in the UK stated that by the year 2035 at the latest the life expectancy rates for men and women will be exactly the same - there will be no difference between the two statistics, and this will be a first in recorded history.
Apparently the male life expectancy rate in the UK is increasing at a faster rate than the female equivalent, and various factors have been given as to why this is happening. The most notable being the much greater care men - in general - are now taking over their health than they have ever done before, improved dietary habits and a general trend to the pursuance of sport and excercise in general. I go to an all male gym and the place if often heaving with fit, healthy looking bodies. Another very significant factor is the decline in the number jobs normally undertaken by men and which can be dangerous and a threat to health or life itself, although there will always be jobs in this category but not on the scale of the past.
Plus the statistics which show that nowadays more women than men in the UK continue to smoke...hard to believe but the reports that it is indeed the case..... and that women also increasingly quite prominently now in the rise in alcohol related deaths among people under the age of 40.
Amazingly the UK suicide rates are noticeably lower than in most other developed countries...they are certainly the lowest in Europe and lower than those in the USA and Canada, so even though we appear to go around whingeing and whining about everything, and looking like we have just spent a wet weekend in Wigan with someone we can't stand and are constantly finding a 5p coin lying in the street just after losing a 10p coin in a dodgy machine we must be more content than we're prepared to admit.
place if often heaving ...is not if
US:
male: 75.29 years
female: 81.13 years
(2008)
Britain:
male: 76.37 years
female: 81.46 years
(2008)
Ah, so I can expect to die, what, a couple months sooner than my British counterpart? Whew! I better put the brakes on this hectic lifestyle I'm leading!