# Women live longer than men, why is this life expectancy gap not scandalous? Why is it not a big deal **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 17, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597 "2013-02-17T16:00:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/81 "2013-02-20T16:11:41Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > I safely assumed you were young and healthy because you speak with the indignation and conviction of a young person who’s never suffered. Forgive me if I’m incorrect (although whether or not I am, I doubt you’d agree). Why would someone who has never suffered be so cavalier about life? Those are the people who want to hold on as long as possible. > [@](#): > > What I can claim with certainty is you are literally incapable of knowing whether it will be poppies and lavender or black bile and burnt bacon. Do you see the difference? Yeah but between the two of us, I have a much better idea than you, so stop assuming shit about me. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/82 "2013-02-20T18:54:01Z")
**Dave** who? You seem to have the advantage of me. Perhaps an introduction is in order? > [@ReticulatingSplines](#): > > Yeah but between the two of us, I have a much better idea than you, so stop assuming shit about me. But that’s the thing, you don’t. Unless you’re a fortune-teller, you have no idea at all. You’re the one assuming shit about yourself, and I’m asking you to think twice about it, because your convictions are no more likely than chance to be correct. You may have an idea about your likelihood of getting certain diseases or conditions. But even then, you have no idea precisely how those conditions will affect your future personality (upon which “desire to live” is 100% dependent). It’s \*totally unknown, \*to both you and me! Think back to yourself around age 10. The person you were at that time bears very little resemblance to the person you are now. You probably think and do things that, when you were a kid, seemed inconceivable. You probably said things like, I’ll never drink or do drugs! or, I’m going to be a policeman when I grow up! And you totally meant it. You couldn’t possibly have conceived of being untrue to yourself EVER, no matter WHAT, in your WHOLE LIFE. You were 100% determined to stick to those convictions forever. But nobody in their twenties is the same person they were at age 10. Age (and potential physical/mental illness) changes everybody \*\*and \*\*their convictions. To assume that your 75-year-old self will resemble your 20-something self is even more foolish than it was to assume that your 20-something self would resemble your 10 year-old-self. That’s like 50 goddamn years of life experience you haven’t had yet and can’t even conceive of. And at least when you were 10, you had the excuse of ignorance to fall back on. I can speak to this on an even more micro level (perhaps this will help clear up **Dave** ’s faux-innocent confusion, although that is incidental). Until a few months ago, I felt I had absolutely nothing worth living for. If an omniscient being had told me (as late as the day before I met my boyfriend) that I would soon be legitimately deliriously happy and in love for the first time in years, I’d have laughed in their face. I had stopped looking, thoroughly anticipated becoming a crazy cat woman, and other depressing shit. Well, these kinds of surprises generally continue coming along. Your personality is NEVER set in stone. Haven’t you ever heard of lifelong atheists turning into born-again Christians in their fifties and sixties? Why do you think you’re somehow immune to future change? Do you not see the incredibly obnoxious hubris emanating from every post you make along these lines? Anyway, at this point I’m just repeating myself. Hopefully you’ll be more logical about aging going forward, but it’s no skin off my arse if you don’t. And if not, have fun being miserable! ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/83 "2013-02-20T20:44:46Z")
Who said anything about being miserable? I’m not miserable. I’m actually very happy. My life is in many ways the best it’s ever been. You’re just projecting your old unhappiness onto me. And might I one day enjoy existence as a giant liver spot on wheels? Of course it’s possible. I never said it wasn’t. But you keep implying that like leaves blowing in the wind, we’re just constantly at the mercy of fate, and my attitude about life will change accordingly and so you know as much as I do about the kind of person I will be in the future. That is wrong. Not wanting to be dependent on others or a burden is a core part of my identity. To question that is like me insisting that in the next 50 years, maybe you’ll enjoy kicking puppies, because hey, personalities change. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/84 "2013-02-20T20:54:24Z")
> [@ReticulatingSplines](#): > > To question that is like me insisting that in the next 50 years, maybe you’ll enjoy kicking puppies, because hey, personalities change. Why would I disagree with you about that? I might very well go crazy with dementia someday. Puppy-kicking and unwelcome sexual activities in public are not out of the question for old Rachel, at all. ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/85 "2013-02-20T21:05:49Z")
Well, points for consistency, I’ll grant you that. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/86 "2013-02-20T22:56:51Z")
This table (click on males, females and both sexes): [Mortality rates, by age group](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/health21c-eng.htm) shows that across the board in Canada and each province, the under 1 yo mortality is already higher for boys than girls. Make of it what you will. Even at age 76, I still want to live as long as I am sentient. I still do mathematics research, albeit at a lower level than I used to. I read STD. But if I had nothing else to do, I would volunteer, in a hospital, as a driver, something to give me a purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/87 "2013-02-21T12:51:32Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > There is a lot of youthful ignorance in this thread. Saying you’d rather die than exceed the average life expectancy is like how people say they’d rather die than lose their legs or go blind or get fat. But, after the same person loses their legs or goes blind or gets fat, they keep wanting to live. What’s up with that!??! The survival instinct is far more powerful than you can even begin to imagine. So kindly stop with the foolish pronouncements. > > Skewed sample, much? Not everybody spends their dotage hospitalized or rotting in a nursing home. And, as unfortunate as the people you looked after may have been, their every waking moment wasn’t filled with nothing but agony and despair. The vast majority of people get more content with life the older they become, because they acquire the wisdom that ONLY comes through life experience. Young people, necessarily lacking in life experience, are the \*least \*equipped to make statements about how they’d rather be dead than old. > > But hey, don’t take my word for it. Why not conduct a poll of 75+ year olds in various stages of mental and physical health and ask them if they’d rather be dead? After they laugh in your face (ew! old people breath! :o), I’m sure there will be a resounding chorus of NO!s. Why? Welp, by that point in life, a person has survived a great deal of death, pain, and loss. But instead of being crippled by those experiences, MOST people realize how fortunate a gift life is. Not just the people I looked after in hospital. I knew a lot of old people ( as I’m old too ), and not many of them had rich fullfilling lives. My mother had diabetes and lost a leg- confined to the house for the most part till she died, my step father- well the less said the better about him, my father with senile dementia, friend’s fathers that had strokes and cancer- lingering awful lives, poor old people wandering the streets with a bottle in a bag etc etc. Sure, if you are independently wealthy, fit and healthy, have a loving family that will support you, and good friends, by all means hope for a long and happy elder life, but it certainly doesn’t apply to many. “because they acquire the wisdom that ONLY comes through life experience.” Well, that must apply to me, as I’ve been around a very long time. “Young people, necessarily lacking in life experience, are the \*least \*equipped to make statements about how they’d rather be dead than old.” True, but certainly doesn’t apply to me. BTW, not many young western people consider old people wise, these days. ---
**Author:** ![doubleminus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@doubleminus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubleminus)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/88 "2013-02-21T13:10:05Z")
> [@ReticulatingSplines](#): > > Who wants to live far past 75 anyway? I sure as fuck don’t. This can be arranged for. ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/89 "2013-02-21T13:31:47Z")
> [@doubleminus](#): > > This can be arranged for. Yup, that’s not weird at all. ---
**Author:** ![Minnie\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Minnie\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Minnie_Luna)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/90 "2013-02-21T15:21:23Z")
I think setting an arbitrary age, like 75, as being “old” and “lifeless” is painting with too broad a brush. My grandmother and grandfather are both 84. Grandma has kicked cancer’s ass, gotten a new hip and is still very active and vibrant. Grandpa, on the other hand, is starting to deteriorate. He is starting to show signs of senile dementia and has heart problems. IMHO, my grandfather is getting to the point where he is tired and isn’t happy with his quality of life. He doesn’t like taking his meds, they make him tired. He stopped one of his blood pressure meds because he didn’t like it, which got him a good talking to by the doctor. Granted, they are in pretty good shape physically, mostly because my grandmother cannot bear to sit still for very long. They currently own a townhouse but are looking at moving into a senior living community. I think it is a good move. I’ve seen people 20 yrs younger than them that are in horrible shape physically and mentally. When my grandmother had her hip replaced, there was a woman who had hers done at the same time. The woman was 15 yrs younger and a good 75 lbs heavier. She saw her a few weeks later at the bank and the woman was still using a walker while my grandma had already abandoned hers. They know they are lucky, but they have always active and health conscious. Life is what you make of it, at any age. You can be unhealthy at 36 or 84. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/91 "2013-02-21T16:10:10Z")
This is just one of those things that WAY oversimplifies what’s really going on. The real lesson to take from this is that while men and women are not identical biologically and we should stop pretending that they are. Yes, we should treat men and women as equally as reasonably possible but there’s some differences that cannot be accounted for, and really we shouldn’t have to. As mentioned upthread, men have a tendency to get engaged in more risky behavior that leads to early death, whether it’s thrill-seeking, suicide, combat, manual labor, criminal behavior or whatever. Some of this related to genetic and biological differences, some of it is related to cultural and social differences. Either way, this is going to skew life expectancy against men. Second, child mortality is much higher among male children than female children, and that’s just an unavoidable biological fact. For instance, I know there’s several genetic disorders that are much more prevalent in male children just because they only have one X chromosome, whereas there are few that are more prevalent in female children. Either way, this is an unavoidable biological factor that increases male child mortality and, thus, skews life expectancy against men. I imagine men would still be a little bit behind women even if we controlled for all of this, but it’d probably be a lot closer. But even still, I don’t see how it becomes scandalous. Sure, we could put more funding into researching genetic diseases that affect men more than women or engage in social engineering to either discourage men from taking on as much risk or encourage women to take on more of it. But I think those are both terrible ideas. For medical research, money shouldn’t be spent so that it’s fair amongst men and women, or various races or whatever, it should be spent in a way that will have the greatest impact on the most people. That is, if disease X kills twice as many people as disease Y and funds will have roughly the same impact on percentage of lives saved, more should be spent on disease X regardless of whether it affects both men and women equally or not. For instance, based on a quick google ([http://www.fairfoundation.org/factslinks.htm](http://www.fairfoundation.org/factslinks.htm)), breast cancer has one of the highest rates of spending per patient. Comapred with, say prostate cancer, it receives several times more. But worse, Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the US even above all cancers combined and the spending on a per patient basis is absolutely dwarfed by both of those. So personally, even though I know people affected by both breast cancer and prostate cancer, it’s just a matter of pragmatism that I’d rather see more funds go to cardiovascular disease. Similarly, for the social aspect, there’s not necessarily anything wrong. If you want to live longer, don’t engage in risky behaviors, and whether or not other men are women are doing it doesn’t matter. And to a certain extent, it’s fixing itself anyway. More women are doing jobs that were previously considered too dangerous for them, notably the recent change to being allowed in combat. Also, as more manual labor jobs are automated are replaced with other sorts of jobs, that will normalize over time as well. So, yeah, I think this sort of discussion is just an oversimplification not unlike the common idea of women tending to make less than men for the same job, but when controlling for the fact that women biologically must contribute more in raising children and socially often make more concessions than biologically necessary, and that socially women and men tend to choose different types of jobs the rates are a whole lot closer than just lumping all men and all women together would lead one to believe. In both cases, there’s still some stuff we can do socially and culturally to help make things a little more even, but we can’t just have knee-jerk reactions to over-simplified statistics. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/92 "2013-02-21T16:46:03Z")
In response to the OP: Everybody dies eventually. So I don’t think there would be the type of issues your describing. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/93 "2013-02-21T17:21:21Z")
> [@panaccione](#): > > In response to the OP: > > Everybody dies eventually. So I don’t think there would be the type of issues your describing. All the actuaries reading this screamed in agony. ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/94 "2013-02-21T17:40:10Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Don’t eat much genuine Mexican beans and rice, do you? It’s amazing how much manteca/lard you can add to refritos before it starts pooling on top, We eat lots of non-refried beans in Mexico, frijoles de la olla, and in our household we never use lard when preparing refried beans. And we are genuine Mexicans. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/95 "2013-02-21T21:22:38Z")
Lol huh? ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597/96 "2013-02-23T06:02:31Z")
> [@Minnie\_Luna](#): > > I think setting an arbitrary age, like 75, as being “old” and “lifeless” is painting with too broad a brush. My grandmother and grandfather are both 84. Grandma has kicked cancer’s ass, gotten a new hip and is still very active and vibrant. Grandpa, on the other hand, is starting to deteriorate. He is starting to show signs of senile dementia and has heart problems. IMHO, my grandfather is getting to the point where he is tired and isn’t happy with his quality of life. He doesn’t like taking his meds, they make him tired. He stopped one of his blood pressure meds because he didn’t like it, which got him a good talking to by the doctor. Granted, they are in pretty good shape physically, mostly because my grandmother cannot bear to sit still for very long. They currently own a townhouse but are looking at moving into a senior living community. I think it is a good move. > > I’ve seen people 20 yrs younger than them that are in horrible shape physically and mentally. When my grandmother had her hip replaced, there was a woman who had hers done at the same time. The woman was 15 yrs younger and a good 75 lbs heavier. She saw her a few weeks later at the bank and the woman was still using a walker while my grandma had already abandoned hers. They know they are lucky, but they have always active and health conscious. > > Life is what you make of it, at any age. You can be unhealthy at 36 or 84. Learn from the hip example, if you want to be happy and fit in later life, don’t be an obese bloat bag. If you are, not only will you probably get diabetes and cardiac/ circulation problems, but your leg joints will wear out as will your replacements, and nurses/ carers will hate looking after you and say nasty things behind your back. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-live-longer-than-men-why-is-this-life-expectancy-gap-not-scandalous-why-is-it-not-a-big-deal/650597.md?page=4)