I'd react as usual, by researching the answer. Which I just did.
In the men's liberation movement (Steve Biddulph and his ilk), there is an observation that the majority of women's work is safer. Biddulph points out that while what feminists say is true (that women are treated like commodities), men are treated as expendable (by other men who are higher in the hierarchy). More men join the armed services and die in wars. More men work in dangerous jobs such as oil rigs, mining, ocean fishing, garbage collection and so on. More men are highly competitive, putting themselves through greater levels of stress over extended periods of time. Many men are not good at looking after themselves after divorce - they don't cook healthy foods for themselves but eat diets of highly processed packaged foods, take away junk etc.
But...
Most women marry men who are older, generally by three to seven years. My husband is 9 years older. My father was 19 years older than my mother.
It's interesting that women live longer than men everywhere on the planet, regardless of the cultural and geographic conditions. This article produced what I thought was the best research and evaluation: https://ourworldindata.org/why-do-women-live-longer-than-men
It seems there are so many factors to consider that no one has been able to identify a single cause.
Ari's mother's side is genetically very long-lived and I suspect he will take after her. Being a perpetual optimist, he has always expected to live into his late 90's. At 73, he has a few vulnerabilities. One is severe kyphoscoliosis and a shrinking spine which is sending him into a hunchbacked posture that compresses his internal organs. Last year a melanoma on his retina threatened to make him blind in one-eye. He has a tendency to take risks without being aware of them and hence accident-prone. And he has various skin cancers, including melanoma (all successfully excised so far) and a benign enlarged prostate that needs close watching. (Well you could envisage getting up close with a camera if you wish, but I'd rather not.) Other than that, he is lean, wiry, healthy, energetic, and has a huge lust for life. He has momentary depressive moods when he beats himself up for mistakes and for lack of achievement and "success" - but he has never longed for death or contemplated suicide.
Ari would never think of asking me a question like this one - but if he did, I'd never think of taking it personally.
This post was edited by inky at December 12, 2019 1:23 PM MST
A joke yes - and I ought to be able to come up with a witty repost. It's one of my defects that I can't.
Nevertheless, your question raises issues that deserve serious research. Why should men live less long than women? We know that more men than women succeed at suicide because they choose more violent and hence more "successful" means. But we also know that more women than men attempt suicide, and that the rate of depression among women is far greater than the rate among men. On the other hand, it is probable that far more men are depressed than we realise because they are less likely to talk about their problems with friends, and less likely to ask for help from professionals. It is also probable that men's depressions have different expression - for instance, more likely to have short fuzes and react too easily with anger and violence. Gun crimes are possibly often committed by depressed men. But throughout Western countries, suicide is on the rise. We need to be asking questions about our work-life balance, the costs of economic rationalism, and the values we place on materialism versus relationships and good communication skills. We need to be raising consciousness about how to tune-in to one another's needs and how to give each other emotional support.
This post was edited by inky at December 12, 2019 6:28 PM MST
Our city has been ranked #2 most depressive for medium size cities. We also have a high crime rate per capita. Much of it is due to poverty, lack of education, and alcohol. About 25% of my students were in single parent families. Some lived with grandparents. I had one living on his own wherever he could and a girl kicked out because she was a lesbian.Very depressing.
I understand and agree. There's no question that poverty creates incredible stress - and when a person feels trapped in it, depression is a natural result. The irony is that depressive thinking makes it far harder to find solutions to one's problems.
I don't know if your research touched on this particular aspect, but there is some scientific evidence suggesting men have somewhat greater genetic variability than women. High variability has advantages at the population evolution level, because it produces more exceptional individuals who have evolutionary fitness advantages which can be passed on to future generations. The cost, however, is you have more exceptionally "unfit" individuals who are more susceptible to genetic maladies (e.g. autism is significantly more common in men than women) and/or environmental stresses.
How the genetic variability component affects sex-based lifespan differences compared to cultural/environmental factors, I do not know.
Four out of five kids on the autism spectrum are male, with the same rate for ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, and colour-blindness. Both men and women can be bi-polar, but unipolar endogenous depression is far more common in women. The highs of mania are more likely to produce genius in men.
I'm not sure about fitness advantages for long term selection. While men who have severe disabilities do have a harder time finding partners than able men, disabled men are ten times more likely to attract permanent female partners than disabled women. Men who are brilliant are likely to attract the partner of their choice but do not tend to have more partners or produce more children than average men. I would guess that their physical or mental brilliance has no influence on their capacity for emotional connection or their preference for sexual adventure versus family, monogamy, divorce, etc.
There are other conditions where women are far more prone than men, such as depression, anxiety and trauma disorders.
One thing we must keep in mind when we discuss evolutionary factors is the development of culture and technology dramatically altered how genetic variation affects the life of individuals.
The immense resource surpluses technological cultures generate allow us to sustain individuals who, in pre-technological times, may have died quite early in life because of their inability to adequately contribute to their own survival.
Also, there is some evidence some of the maladies we've discussed are a product of our modern life. Dr. Stephen Ilardi, a clinical psychologist at the University of Kansas, has done research with some pre-technological people in remote areas of Southeast Asia. He has found that their incidence of depression and anxiety disorders is almost nothing. Ilardi believes their pre-technological lifestyle (lots of exercise, simple diet, lots of sleep, lots of exposure to outdoor environments and sunshine, etc.) protects them from such disorders, and Ilardi has a treatment regimen for depression/anxiety sufferers based upon living more like pre-technological people.
I think I first heard that joke at least ten years ago, I happily repeated it to my wife shortly thereafter. I can’t remember her exact reaction, but it may have been something akin to, “Guards, take him away immediately, and off with his head!”
Like many things with men ,they just don't listen properly and take the easy lazy option concerning recyliling of useless redoundent objects that don't work properly anymore...hehe.
Like Randy, I told my better half that one when I first heard it (she's a year older than I am, but looks younger). She told me it was because I'm a worrier and she's not.
inky 