Although I wouldn’t dismiss the impact of testosterone poisoning, I think it’s quite obvious that a woman lives longer than a man because she didn’t have to marry a woman.
Seriously, I’ve long felt that although men may have the upper body strength, over the long term women are tougher. My cite: I thought it, I believe it, that settles it.
Maybe it just seems like it.
According to this paper, it is mainly because men are bigger than women - the same thing is observed in many other species (although the inverse is generally true across different species); bigger = shorter life expectancy (men and women):
Interestingly enough, it also claims that is why men have higher rates of cancer and cardiovascular disease.
(I have a personal interest in this because it suggests that I should easily outlive most of the members on this board)
I think we’re conflating two seperate but important factors here. These things often confuse longevity discussion.
There’s “what’s the average lifespan of X” and there’s “what’s your likely lifespan if you survive until Y age”, whch can be entirely different.
For example, let’s say there was a population of people who had a 50% chance of dying during the first 5 years of their life, but if they managed to survive past that, they’d live to be 150. The average age would still be 75 years old (well, a little more, but you get the point), but if you were a 6 year old of this group, you could count on living for another 144 years.
Now, I don’t know how this difference applies to that discussion, but some factors like whether men die in work-related accidents would not heavily impact the “if you’re a healthy 60 year old man, how much longer can you expect to live?” question, which is seperate from the “what’s the average life expectancy of men?” question. But I thought this issue should be raised to clarify the discussion. A better question may be “to people who manage to live into old age, what is their life expectancy difference?”
Why is it shocking?
Women are more health conscious, are less likely to engage in a number of risky behaviors, and, in general, take better care of themselves.
Similarly, I suspect have Mormons longer life expectancies than say Catholics, but that’s not because the US somehow favors Mormons over Catholics.
This is ignorant, sexist bullshit.
None of my lived-beyond-75 relatives had lack of purpose or creaky hips at that age. Those who did drive were happy to stop doing so, but I realize they lived in places where stuff was within walking distance, which is probably not your case. And you can drop dead any time now.
My grandma is at the stage where she can say “so young!” of people who are 98. She complains of a (one) creaky knee, has four teeth she did not pay for and lives on her own (there is a part-time caretaker who goes M-F and my cousin lives 400m away).
Realize what? That I’ll be so happy at 75 that I’ll desperately want to eke out fifteen more minutes of life? Well guess what? I probably won’t. And neither will anyone else, if suicide rates are any indication. The over-75 set has the highest rate of any age bracket.
That’s because life sucks at that age. But hey, if we just tell ourselves they love being alive, we don’t have to feel guilty for all the times we ignored grandma’s calls.
Print it off and put it up. I look forward to hearing from you when you tear it down.
Who cares about the mental faculties? It’s the physical faculties that concern me, and having had to look after aged people in hospital, I long ago decided that I’d rather commit sideways than exist like that.
That’s one of the more morbidly amusing autocorrects I’ve seen. I tend to agree with you, mainly because the thought of relying on others for basic everyday activities is pretty horrifying. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.
So… because life sucks for some you extrapolate that to all?
Try not to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. Myself, I have every intention to living into the triple digits.
Notice the pie chart at the top, breast and prostate both on 7% of cancer deaths. Breast cancer is 15% of cancer cases, according to another page on the same site, prostate cancer is 13%.
IN short, prostate cancer is more likely to kill you than breast cancer. Men are also more likely to die of all other common cancers other than pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and those cancers which only effect women.
The shorter male life expectancy isn’t because men tend to die a couple of year earlier at the upper end, though, it’s largely because men are more likely to die at every age before senescence, right up until an age when men are heavily outnumbered by women. Men are more likely to die from pretty much every cause at younger ages. Illness, suicide, combat deaths, deaths from crime, congenital illnesses, on the job accidents, pretty much anything other than childbirth.
And the most common response, as WhyNot says, is “blame men”. Just like when there is violence against women, or female health concerns or any other women’s issues the response is always “blame men” too.
If you want to do something about it, then a lot of things need to be done. Women need to be pressured into doing dangerous work to support their families while men stay at home and look after children. Women need to be sent into combat instead of men. People need to be taught from youth that hitting men is wrong, rather than hitting women, which will hopefully cause criminals to start preferentially targeting women rather than men. “Well Women” clinics and the like need to be shut down and the resources targetted towards men instead, that being the most effective use of healthcare resources. Awareness and fundraising for breast cancer and that sort of thing need to be replaced with campaigns for male cancers, and gender neutral cancers while mostly effect men. And none of that is going to happen while we have a female dominated society where the first response when a male problem is mentioned is “Oh, another “We poor men have it so rough” thread.” or “blame men”.
Try the next page: Cancer mortality statistics | Cancer Research UK
In the US according to the CDC in 2009 40,676 women in the United States died from breast cancer. 28,088 men in the United States died from prostate cancer the same year. Prostate cancer tends to strike men older than breast cancer strikes women. And it moves very slow. Finally, private funding for breast cancer research has been significant. Women and men have been choosing to spend their own money on funding breast cancer research. Want prostate cancer funded? - get a few million people to walk every year at a minimum of $25 a pop. That’s one of the biggest reasons that breast cancer has made the strides it has - there is a very public face to breast cancer and a huge private funding effort - and its been in existence now for 30 years.
IMO, this unnecessarily minimizes some real equality issues women face, and doesn’t carry much substance as an argument. This is not some type of unique social construct, but that withstanding, I still can’t summon the outrage.
Women also have to bear children and deal with menstrual cycles…having a few more years, is the least nature can do for them (provided they are good ones).
Well, I was exaggerating, of course. I don’t intend to hasten my own demise, but given the choice of 75 vibrant and physically intact years versus 100 in failing health and dependency, I’d pick the former. I don’t get why that’s so controversial or hard to believe.
So… because some remain strong and vibrant, you extrapolate that to all?
I gotta tell you, the strong and vibrant 76 year olds are not the statistical majority. They’re the ones we feature in feel good segments on the news *because *they’re so unusual. So hope for that, sure. But please get your paperwork in order and your funeral arranged long before that, just in case you’re normal.
None of that is going to happen when you read the first response and don’t finish the post. Y’know, that part about “And then let’s stop blaming and try to fix it, okay?”
“Blame” is a tongue in cheek word. Yes, it’s important to identify where public health could be doing better. It’s important to figure out where the problems lie so that we can make a plan to fix them. Call it “causative factors” if you’re writing a research paper or grant proposal. “Blame” is a perfectly cromulent word for the same thing if you’re communicating informally on a message board. And the fact remains that *most *of the identified causative factors in men’s shortened lifespan can be traced back to biology or to their own actions - not as a group, but as individuals with statistically significant shared behavioral patterns which shorten their lifespan. Should we address that, try to educate about better lifestyle choices, increase workplace safety, make suicidal thoughts not-taboo, make doctor’s offices not so scary for men and make health care more accessible? Absolutely. But those are all interventions which address the causative factors - men’s choices and actions. Closing a Women’s Health Clinic will increase health care for men how?
AHahahahahah… Oh look. One trick pony is one-trick-ponying again.
I had the same thought. I found this link to a Social Security Admin. page that answers that question ( Social Security History ). In 1990 (the latest data on the chart, whay does the SSA data always lag so far behind?) a male who reached the age of 65 could expect to live another 15.3 years. A female could expect another 19.6 years of life - roughly 25% longer. That’s substantial.
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.