Sex Differences in Health: Evidence and Explanations 343expectancies for Hispanics in the United
States exceeded those for Blacks and Whites,
with Latina women outliving men by six
years (women 83.7; men 77.2; Andalo, 2004).
On average, women outlive men by five years
in the United States.
Sex differences in longevity have existed
throughout the 20th century, but their size has
varied. The average length of life for women
and men during each decade of the 20th cen-
tury is shown in Table 10.2. In 1900, the aver-
age man lived to be 46 and the average woman
48; the sex difference in mortality was only
two years. Life spans lengthened for both men
and women over the course of the century due
to better nutrition, better health care, and the
development of vaccines. The sex difference
in longevity widened during the middle of the
century, peaking in 1979, when women out-
lived men by nearly 7.8 years. The increased
sex difference was due to the reduction in
women’s mortality during childbirth and the
increase in men’s mortality from heart disease
and lung cancer. The increase in men’s lung
cancer can be directly tied to smoking.
More recently, the sex gap in mortal-
ity has narrowed. In the 1980s and 1990s, sex32 boys die, resulting in a male to female ratio of
1.23. You can see that the sex difference peaks
during adolescence and young adulthood.
Some claim that males are more likely
than females to die even before birth. Re-
searchers have suggested that 120 to 160
boys are conceived for every 100 girls (Stil-
lion, 1995), which would imply a high death
rate for males in utero if only 105 boys to 100
girls are actually born. However, Waldron
(1998) contends that the number of females
and males conceived is unknown because
we do not have any idea of the number of
females and males who die during the first
eight weeks after conception.
After birth, males have higher death
rates than females at all ages. Thus it comes
as no surprise that women live longer than
men. In 2006, people in the United States
reached a record long life expectancy of 78
years. However, men did not live as long as
women. Life expectancy at birth for White
women was 81, and for White men, it was- Life expectancies at birth for Black people
lagged behind, but the sex difference per-
sisted: 77 for Black women and 70 for Black
men. The 2000 census showed that the life
TABLE 10.1 NUMBER OF DEATHS PER 100,000 IN 2007
Age Male Female Male:Female Ratio
01–4 32 26 1.23
05–14 17 13 1.31
15–24 116 42 2.76
25–34 145 64 2.27
35–44 232 136 1.71
45–54 343529 314 1.68
55–64 1,099 668 1.65
65–74 2,452 1,629 1.51
75–84 6,046 4,309 1.40
85 and over 14,031 12,465 1.13
Source: Adapted from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2009a).M10_HELG0185_04_SE_C10.indd 343 6/21/11 8:54 AM