why do women live longer than men

[drhess]

Assuming we remove reasons related to accidental deaths or general behavior that is risky (e.g., if men are more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior, higher likelihood to smoke or overeat or drink or whatever, greater involvement in violent crime or warfare, taking of riskier jobs, etc.) is it well known why women live longer than men? Is this something common in other mammals?

[Will Repair]

Menopause (http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/10.01/WhyWomenLiveLon.html)

Molecular (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070208131851.htm) for all mammals.

[drhess]

Not sure that explains it: "This reasoning, however, does not explain why women live so much longer than men." -From your first link.

[telecommunications]

Scientists' initial surprise at these results was rooted in the assumption that aging was biologically identical in male and female.

well those scientists should have their drivers licenses suspended for being terminally braindead and a threat to pedestrians and other drivers and any books by darwin ought to be thrown at them until they cry as punishment for being surprised and pocketing their stupid paychecks acting surprised and everyone is surprises. if scientists like these weren't so stupid then i would be much less likely to die from a stroke thus widening the gap between male and female life expectancies.

[Bob55]

I am a Molecular Biologist, so of course look for molecular reasons, but I really like Jared Diamond's somewhat non-molecular explanation. In "The Third Chimpanzee" he theorizes that you only have so many calories to utilize everyday - even a soldier or farmer at max labor can really only metabolize ~6000 calories a day. So your body has to make a decision - does it put all of its energy into reproduction, all into repair, or some sort of balance of the two?

Well, animals like mice are likely to be eaten tomorrow, so they put all of their energy into reproduction. Elephants probably will not be killed by a predator, so can put a lot of energy into cellular repair. Humans are like elephants - not likely to be eaten tomorrow. Therefore, we can allocate most of our calories to cellular repair, and some to reproduction.

This is where the men/women come in - men, who are always looking to reproduce - spend more energy producing sperm, building muscles to fight other males, and impressing females. Therefore, we spend slightly less energy on cellular repair, and die sooner. I'm not sure if there's any evidence to support this theory, but I did like it from a non-molecular standpoint.

It probably boils down to something simpler like a lifelong exposure to testosterone. Or maybe that men tend to engage in more risk-taking behavior to impress women, the theory there being that a man who will jump off a cliff with a parachute will likely jump in front of a lion to save a woman, and is therefore 'attractive' in some sense. Again, not sure there is a theory to back any of this up, but it is just things I've read.

[Chronos]

Another point: Males are more expendable than females, since a single male can (in principle) impregnate many females. This is why males are more predisposed to whatever jobs are risky for a species, because it's less of a loss if they get killed.

But if males tend to take the riskier jobs (as they do), then there's less evolutionary incentive for long life. What does it matter when you'll die of old age, when you're likely to get eaten by a smilodon tomorrow? So males have not evolved to live as long as females, in preference for evolving to better survive the smilodons (this is why males are generally stronger than females).

[MLS]

Add in that women live longer than men today, in developed countries.

Prior to access to modern medicine, it was actually unusual for a woman to live into old age. Think of any woman you know who required an emergency C-section. Without medical intervention she'd likely have died. Heck, even a couple hundred years ago it was not unusual for a man to go through several wives as each died giving birth or in the complications thereof. In addition to the relatively few very hardy women who survived her childbearing years, the ones most likely to live the longest were either unmarried or barren.

There's a great essay by Isaac Asimov, the name of which I cannot remember, in which he explained this. He went on to elaborate that without modern dentistry, the few elderly of either sex were likely to have lost many of their teeth, leading to a sunken face and jaw area. Men, of course, could hide the ravages of time and tooth decay with a beard, and other than said facial adornment being white or gray did not look all that much different than a younger man. In contrast, the elderly spinster's face sank inward, drawing the nose and chin closer together, leading to the legendary old woman living alone, learned perhaps in herbs and remedies, with no protection other than her fearsome appearance. Behold, the witch.

[Fear Itself]

Because they rarely get married to women.

[Zabali_Clawbane]

This post (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9397412&postcount=47) I made in another thread is pertinent here. Read the science article I link to, all three pages. :)

[Madd Maxx]

Simple. Penises are bad for you.

[GilaB]

It's not purely due to aging differently. I believe that nearly all the pediatric cancers are more common in boys than girls, especially certain forms of leukemia and brain tumors; a lot of relevant papers are summarized here (http://www.dorak.info/epi/gender.html).
Anecdotally, I used to volunteer for a camp for children with cancer, and every year, there were significantly more boys than girls.

[Pixilated]

Simple. Penises are bad for you.


but i like my pet penis.... he's soooo cute and squishy & makes me giddy. :D

imho, penis' are interesting to look at.

[pkbites]

Because they rarely get married to women.


Why do men usually die before their wives? Because they want to.

What do you call a woman who always knows what her husband is doing?

A widow

[Will Repair]

Not sure that explains it: "This reasoning, however, does not explain why women live so much longer than men." -From your first link.
I could say that this article, from Harvard University, was a balanced argument of one explanation but actually it was just a poorly written one.

[APB]

Add in that women live longer than men today, in developed countries.

Prior to access to modern medicine, it was actually unusual for a woman to live into old age. Think of any woman you know who required an emergency C-section. Without medical intervention she'd likely have died. Heck, even a couple hundred years ago it was not unusual for a man to go through several wives as each died giving birth or in the complications thereof. In addition to the relatively few very hardy women who survived her childbearing years, the ones most likely to live the longest were either unmarried or barren.

As I pointed out the last time you made this claim in a previous thread on the same subject (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=413998&highlight=thane), this is simply untrue.

[Philster]

Men, on average, are bigger and place a harder toll on their infrastructures.

Men face more workplace hazards that lead to earlier deaths. Exposure to chemicals, radiation, etc, lead indirectly to shorter life spans.

The burden of being the bread winner is still real and contributes greatly to the stress felt by men over women.

Just some very important things to consider.

[telecommunications]

it's mighty difficult to purely genetic reasons for one gender's shorter lifespan while at the same time excluding environmental factors or gender roles. while neither of these two kinds of explanations answer your question, they do detract from the relevancy and importance of inquiring into possible genetic causes for this life-expectancy gap.

[BaneSidhe]

Just my observation, but I think part of what kills men quicker than women is that women express their emotions while men are taught to keep everything in, that old "stiff upper lip" BS that does more harm than good. That's just me.

[ultrafilter]

If the difference were primarily down to occupational hazards, risky behavior and childhood diseases, then you'd expect, say, septuagenarian men and women to have approximately equal life expectancies. But they don't: old women tend to live much longer than old men. I think the explanations for this phenomenon are more what the OP is after.

[drhess]

thanks, ultra. i'm trying to exlude accidental, war, work-related reasons. i assume that women live longer even with that taken into account.

Jared Diamon's idea is interesting.

[Malacandra]

Just my observation, but I think part of what kills men quicker than women is that women express their emotions while men are taught to keep everything in, that old "stiff upper lip" BS that does more harm than good. That's just me.
Then you would think - if it does more harm than good - that men who do healthily express their emotions would have kicked the evolutionary shit out of men who don't; and since they evidently haven't, you would have to hypothesise that the "unhealthy" behaviour actually has a payoff. Perhaps men who stand shoulder to shoulder in a phalanx and compartmentalise their grief over the best buddy they've known for fifteen years and has just expired messily on their right prevail in battle over the ones who stop everything to healthily weep and wail?

[Sycorax]

Simple: women take better care of themselves -- physically and mentally. Most women do not hesitate to go to the doctor when something concerns them, regardless of how embarrassing the exam might be. (I'm fortunate in that my hubby has no problem seeing a doctor...and our doctor is a woman.) Most women have someone on whom to unload their worries, depression, anger, etc., and who will be honest and tell her she what she needs to hear. Over the years, women get used to seeing a doctor for gyn exams, birth control, pregnancy. I have no stats or cites, but I suspect that married men (or men living with an s.o.) live longer than single men because we women look out for our men, and try to get them to take care of themselves. It's ironic, but I think this is a result of women being considered chattel for thousands of years (in most societies). We learned that we had to take care of ourselves so that we could care for our husbands and children. Men were waging war while we were concerned with the basics.

[elfkin477]

thanks, ultra. i'm trying to exlude accidental, war, work-related reasons. i assume that women live longer even with that taken into account.
Based on...?

[Zabali_Clawbane]

thanks, ultra. i'm trying to exlude accidental, war, work-related reasons. i assume that women live longer even with that taken into account.

Jared Diamon's idea is interesting.

Read the link in my post, and the science article. It explains what is behind "all-cause mortality" in men in detail. That is, visceral (intra-abdominal) fat. Pre-menopausal women have less of it, and it can cause young men to die.

[JHWT]

Simple: women take better care of themselves -- physically and mentally. Most women do not hesitate to go to the doctor when something concerns them, regardless of how embarrassing the exam might be. (I'm fortunate in that my hubby has no problem seeing a doctor...and our doctor is a woman.) Most women have someone on whom to unload their worries, depression, anger, etc., and who will be honest and tell her she what she needs to hear. Over the years, women get used to seeing a doctor for gyn exams, birth control, pregnancy. I have no stats or cites, but I suspect that married men (or men living with an s.o.) live longer than single men because we women look out for our men, and try to get them to take care of themselves. It's ironic, but I think this is a result of women being considered chattel for thousands of years (in most societies). We learned that we had to take care of ourselves so that we could care for our husbands and children. Men were waging war while we were concerned with the basics.

Well thank God we have women, since we're just too stupid to take care of ourselves. We need a holiday to celebrate women who give up everything to take care of their man-child. I'm going to get back to wiping my ass with a rake, bye bye.

[Malacandra]

Simple: women take better care of themselves -- physically and mentally. Most women do not hesitate to go to the doctor when something concerns them, regardless of how embarrassing the exam might be. (I'm fortunate in that my hubby has no problem seeing a doctor...and our doctor is a woman.) Most women have someone on whom to unload their worries, depression, anger, etc., and who will be honest and tell her she what she needs to hear. Over the years, women get used to seeing a doctor for gyn exams, birth control, pregnancy. I have no stats or cites, but I suspect that married men (or men living with an s.o.) live longer than single men because we women look out for our men, and try to get them to take care of themselves. It's ironic, but I think this is a result of women being considered chattel for thousands of years (in most societies). We learned that we had to take care of ourselves so that we could care for our husbands and children. Men were waging war while we were concerned with the basics.
Interesting, because I'd have at least considered the possibility that correlation does not equal causation, and that the following scenario deserves a little thought:

Men who are poor providers are not good at attracting mates. Men who are poor providers are also not good at taking care of themselves. Hence, there is a significant statistical overlap between men who shorten their life expectancies by self-neglect and men who scupper their chances of getting married. Hence, singleness and shorter lives are correlated without marriage being the cause of longer lives.

[brazil84]

Somebody should study the role of physical size. My non-scientific impression is that large people of either sex tend to die sooner and that slight people tend to live longer. Perhaps this accounts for part of the difference between men and women.

[Mijin]

May as well add my wild speculation to everyone else's.

It might be to do with the Y versus X chromosome thing.

Pathogenic alleles are typically recessive (because bad, dominant genes get selected out of the genepool quickly).
Women have two X chromosomes, and so typically need two recessives to have a pathogenic genotype within that chromosome's genes. Men only have one, and so just need one recessive, which is much more likely to happen.
(The Y chromosome doesn't code for a lot, so is not significant here.)
Stretch the definition of 'pathogenic' to 'not ideal' and you have a hypothesis for why we might expect men to live less long.

A good test for this hypothesis might be to see if females of other mammalian species live longer than males, in controlled conditions (i.e. in captivity).

-------------------

On the other hand, the life expectancy difference between the sexes isn't huge.
Perhaps, once you factor out risk-taking, war, murders etc, the difference is zero.