Women survive severe famines and epidemics better than men
| Autor: | Virginia Zarulli, Julia Barthold Jones, Anna Oksuzyan, Rune Lindahl-Jacobsen, James Vaupel |
|---|---|
| Zdroj: | University of Southern Denmark Zarulli, V, Barthold Jones, J, Oksuzyan, A, Lindahl-Jacobsen, R & Vaupel, J W 2017, ' Women survive severe famines and epidemics better than men ', 28th International Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Cape Town, South Africa, 29/09/2017-04/11/2017 . |
| Popis: | Women live longer than men almost everywhere. Research provides evidence for both biological and behavioral factors modulating this gender gap, leaving open the question of what are its fundamental determinants. An unexplored source of information is when men and women experience extremely high mortality risk. Finding that women have longer life expectancy under harsh conditions would support the hypothesis that the female survival advantage is biologically determined. We investigate the survival in 8 populations under high mortality from famines, epidemics and slavery. We find that women survived better than men. In all populations they had lower mortality and, with the exception of one slave population, they lived longer. Infant ages contributed the most to the gender gap in life expectancy, indicating that newborn girls were able to survive extreme mortality better than newborn boys. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that the gender survival gap has deep biological roots. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|