Why do men live less than women?

It is a fact that all over the world, men live less than women. It is even known that in the richest countries, life expectancy is much higher in them than in them. The difference is up to 18 years in some places.

This data becomes even more surprising when looking at population growth data: more men are born than women each year in the world. That means that there comes a point on the demographic curve where so many men die that the number of women exceeds them.

What are the reasons that men live less time than women?

The WHO recently released some interesting data on this. The reason why men live less than women responds to various circumstances. Furthermore, these figures do not appear to be decreasing even as life expectancy in general continues to rise.

The reason why these data are important is because they help generate sustainable development strategies for the well-being of the population. Knowing what the reasons are behind this statistic can help you take preventive measures to reverse them.

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1. Differences in the immune system

For biological reasons, the immune system of girls is stronger. Until 2017, the probability of a boy dying before reaching the age of 5 was 11% higher than a girl. Although in more developed countries the figure is not so unbalanced.

However, this statistic has made it possible to observe that from the beginning of life, girls have stronger immune systems that help them fight disease better.

This means that if, during the first years of life, boys are more susceptible to getting sick, they are also are more likely to develop chronic diseases or suffer lifelong sequelae from some diseases. This would explain somewhat the inequality in mortality rates.

From the age of 50, the difference between the number of women and men begins to become more noticeable. Which could indicate that some sequelae of childhood diseases drag on throughout life, bringing consequences into adult life.

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2. Cardiovascular diseases

Cardiovascular diseases are more common in men than in women. This type of disease usually considerably deteriorates the quality of life and the body. Once the disease has developed, it is also men who are most affected by it.

But Why are cardiovascular diseases more common in men? There are several reasons that explain it, one of them is that statistically men have worse eating habits than women.

While this is not a general rule, most men, not being concerned about their figure or maintaining their weight, are more careless about what they eat. For this reason, they tend to consume food with high amounts of saturated fat, among other negative eating habits. In addition, once they have developed a cardiovascular disease, the care received is usually less than that of women. So life expectancy is greatly reduced and they end up dying faster compared to women in the same conditions.

3. Accident

Accidents are one of the reasons why men live less than women. This has nothing to do with physical or biological factors. Rather, it is related to the type of life and jobs normally carried out by men.

For gender reasons, men are assigned tasks of greater physical risk or the use of force. Although women have begun to have a greater presence in these areas, it is a fact that men continue to be the majority in certain areas.

The jobs in the area of ​​construction, extreme sports, mining, fishing or the like are mostly carried out by young men. Unfortunately there is a high risk of a serious accident occurring and this contributes to this fateful statistic.

Traffic accidents also have men as the main protagonists. While there is a small part that relates to driving habits, actually driving habits are Fatal motor vehicle accidents involving males are usually due to risks labor.

4. Suicide and homicide

The suicide and homicide figures are higher in men than in women. In the case of suicide, it is estimated that the number of men who commit it is 75% higher than in women. This figure represents the world percentage.

Although apparently psycho-emotional illnesses affect women more than men, what is also true is that they are treated more frequently than they do. Reason why a depression in a man is at greater risk of ending in suicide.

On the other hand, homicides also tend to be more related to men than to women. This in turn is due to the fact that interpersonal violence statistics are higher in men than in women.

In other words, situations of extreme violence occur more frequently between men, and many of them come even to murders, not before having gone through fights, attacks with knives and other cases of violence extreme.

5. Little medical attention

One reason why men live less than women is due to poor medical care. And it is not that medical care is not provided or is of poor quality compared to that received by women. This is explained for other reasons.

Most check-up or first-visit visits are requested by women. Regarding specialty consultations, the figures become more equal, however men reach this point with more complications in various diseases.

This is because men rarely go to the doctor. They are more likely to relieve their symptomatic pain with over-the-counter or self-medicating. This prevents the true origin of your discomfort from being known on many occasions.

When the pain becomes more severe or there are complications, then they do go to the doctor but sometimes they arrive too late, or the sequelae are irreversible. Although it is said that they are less resistant to pain, it is a fact that they are also more reluctant to go to the doctor.

Bibliographic references

• Denney, J. T., McNown, R., Rogers, R. G., & Doubilet, S. (2013). Stagnating Life Expectancies and Future Prospects in an Age of Uncertainty *. Social science quarterly, 94 (2), 445–461. doi: 10.1111 / j.1540-6237.2012.00930.

• Bennett, J. E., Li, G., Foreman, K., Best, N., Kontis, V., Pearson, C.,… Ezzati, M. (2015). The future of life expectancy and life expectancy inequalities in England and Wales: Bayesian spatiotemporal forecasting. Lancet (London, England), 386 (9989), 163–170. doi: 10.1016 / S0140-6736 (15) 60296-3.

• Ostan, R., Monti, D., Gueresi, P., Bussolotto, M., Franceschi, C., & Baggio, G. (2016). Gender, aging and longevity in humans: an update of an intriguing / neglected scenario paving the way to a gender-specific medicine. Clinical science (London, England: 1979), 130 (19), 1711–1725. doi: 10.1042 / CS20160004.