Why do women live longer than men? | Hacker News Reader

Why do women live longer than men?

ourworldindata.org

40 pointsBrajeshwar39 comments

It's in large part social.

> The gap in life expectancy between men and women narrowed with increased income levels. In the bottom 1% of the income distribution, women lived 6.0 years (95% CI, 5.9–6.2 years) longer than men; in the top 1% of the income distribution, women lived only 1.5 years (95% CI, 1.3–1.8 years) longer than men.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866586/#

Men face strong gender roles that drive them to do things that lower life expectancy. Working longer hours in tougher jobs, taking more risks, stress-reducing substances. There's likely some biological component (most animals also show a life expectancy gap), but with appropriate resources and social prioritization we would be able to bring men up to spitting distance of women.

We should be screaming about this one front pages of major media outlets but sadly nobody seems interested.

I don’t see any particular reason to expect the gap to go away for young men of course. Anyone who’s been one knows that the allure of reckless behavior is just unavoidable.

For older men, we essentially seem to see stress and bad habits related to coping with stress (smoking, drinking). This should be level out as the workforce gets more equitable and women end up in more high-income/high-stress positions, right?

Although, I feel like a bit of a jerk speculating that this might become equal. What I really want is for everyone to not have too much stress, and for everyone to not gain maladaptive habits, and for the lifespans to equalize because we’re all being healthy.

Tangential: Those spikes in France around the 1920’s and 1940’s are quite terrifying. The world is certainly not a peaceful place, but I’m sure glad we’ve turned away from these giant, planet-absorbing acts of horror.

I immediately got an image of my uncle touching two mains wires together with his bare hands to see if they were still hot. They were not

Instead of grabbing one wire on each hand (which can route the current through your chest and heart), touch both wires with one hand. Then at most you’ll get a charred hand or carbonized finger - non-life-ending events.

I was "taught" to touch wires with the back of your hand so that if it's live you don't clamp down on them with muscle spasms. I mean their are better measures, but it seems like a good idea if you had to touch them with bare hands.

Thanks! You just extended a few people's life spans

I was taught to keep one hand in your pocket at all times when working with electrical wires or equipment to avoid making a connection through your heart by touching with both hand.

Interesting how consistent this age gap is over time, across countries and age groups, despite the fact that the causes for it keep changing: infant death, war, risk taking, suicide, disease.

With all those variables so very variable, you'd think there would be more periods where men's life expectancy would be higher than that of women, but that seems to be extremely rare (India in 1950 seems to be the only one).

Not really sure on the whole boys being more vulnerable to diseases thing, but most if not all of these factors come down to men having a higher tolerance for risk. Considering that the average life expectancy for men is 5 fewer years, and that said average is still in the elderly category, that cost seems extraordinarily beneficial.

I doubt it's all. Taller people generally don't live as long and men are taller on average, for one. Also quite sad US male life expectancy is 74.3. But that's primarily because of red southern states having even worse around ~70.

When 900 years old you are, look as tall, you will not.

So is being male a proxy for height, or is height a proxy for being male?

yes to both

It's sad on an individual level, but not necessarily at the species level. If men are taking more risks than women but only to the degree that they still die on average in their elderly years, that means they are overall still remaining relevant in their sexually valuable years and sticking around long enough that they're likely to pass down some generational knowledge to grandchildren. Doesn't seem that bad to me considering how low life expectancy used to be.

This comment [1] did a much better job at summarizing the article (that already has a very short Conlusion section).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38654818

The genetic explaination I heard was having both full X chromosomes allowed for balance and backup when part of it is corrupted/non functional.

I was curious to see how this works in birds, which have the ZW system, where Z is the larger chromosome and which males have two of. And, as it turns out, male birds live longer than female ones.

Death from accidents is relatively rare in wealthy countries, yet the difference is still there. If this were true, men and women would have about the same median and mode life expectancy, with only the average showing a difference, and that is not the case.

I'm curious if there is a single occupational or accidental death metric that is lead by women. Men are even in lead for drug overdoses, which would seemingly be gender neutral[1].

[1]https://nida.nih.gov/sites/default/files/images/2023-Drug-od...

You’ve listed risk and cost, but what are up considering benefits of those risks?

Do you mean to ask what cost is up in relation to the benefits of male risk taking?

> that cost seems extraordinarily beneficial

Except for the dead men I presume.

Testosterone, higher metabolism speeds up aging, protein intake/mtor pathway. Men are probably more likely to get debilitating injuries from the type of hands-on work they do. Just a few ideas (other than whats in the article) that could be wrong.

Because they never neglect going to the doctor.

MTOR is once possible reason

There was an amusing sub during Reddit's heyday called r/WhyWomenLiveLonger, populated with videos of men doing stupid things:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WhyWomenLiveLonger/

r/osha is still active and defacto that sub.

TL;DR -

In underdeveloped countries with high discrepancies, it's usually because of war and/or terrible labor conditions.

In developed countries with low discrepancies, it's usually because of less proactive healthcare, more high-risk behavior, and natural factors.

So, a higher tolerance for risk - either individually (rogue electrician) or culturally imposed (enlistment).

Labor choices and suicide.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com