376 Chapter 10activities. Because of men’s risk-taking be-
havior, men have higher rates of all kinds
of accidents compared to women, including
driving, work, and recreational (Waldron,
1997). We have seen that men’s jobs are
more hazardous than those of women. We
have also seen that men are more likely to
find themselves in the driver’s seat of a car
and to take more risks when driving. Men
also are more likely to engage in risky leisure
activities such as downhill skiing, skydiving,
and mountain climbing. Men are more likely
to drown from swimming and boating; men
are more likely to own guns and the greater
use of guns contributes to a greater number
of fatal gun accidents (Waldron, 1995). Until
recently, only men participated in the armed
services, risking death from combat. Men en-
gage in riskier sexual behavior than women,
in terms of inconsistent condom use and sex
with multiple partners (Beadnell et al., 2005).
See Sidebar 10.3 for a discussion of this issue.
A meta-analysis of 150 risk-taking be-
havior studies revealed that men were greater
risk takers than women (d= 1 .13; Byrnes,
Miller, & Schafer, 1999). This effect held
across a range of behaviors that included sex,
drinking, using drugs, risky driving, risky
physical activities, and gambling. Byrnes and
colleagues also found that the size of the sex
difference had decreased over time. More
recent research substantiated that claim, by
showing that the sex difference in risk-taking
behavior is getting smaller due to an increase
in risky behavior among females (Abbott-
Chapman, Denholm, &Wyld, 2008). In a
study in Australia, high school boys reported
a similar level of risky activities as high school
girls, whereas fathers recalled more risky ac-
tivities as teens compared to mothers. Risky
activities include body piercing, use of drugs
and alcohol, smoking, skipping class, and
shoplifting. Among parents, the sex difference
was larger for those who were in their teens insex difference has decreased over the past de-
cade, largely due to increased usage of seat
belts among men (U.S. Department of Trans-
portation, 2008c). Among ninth through
twelfth graders, it also is the case that girls
are more likely than boys to wear a seat belt
(92% vs. 88%; Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, 2010a). One risky driving
behavior that is on the rise is texting while
driving, and this seems to be a larger concern
among females than males. One-third of
teens of ages 16–17 say that they have texted
while driving (Lenhart et al., 2010). Over
50% of girls compared to 38% of boys said
that they talked or texted on a phone while
driving (White & Athavaley, 2010).
One link to motor vehicle fatalities and
an explanation for the sex difference in fatali-
ties is alcohol. Of fatal crashes, 25% of men
compared to 13% of women were driving un-
der the influence of alcohol (U.S. Department
of Transportation, 2008a). Although there are
nearly six times as many males as females in-
volved in alcohol-related fatal crashes (U.S.
Department of Transportation, 2009), the rate
of women drinking and driving has increased.
Between 1999 and 2008, the percentage of
women arrested for driving under the influ-
ence (DUI) increased 35%, whereas the per-
centage of men arrested for DUI decreased by
7% (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). How-
ever, men are still 3.5 times as likely as women
to be arrested for DUI. Among ninth through
twelfth graders, 12% of boys and 8% of girls
admit to drinking and driving (Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 2010a).Risky Behavior
Many differences in health can be explained
by a single aspect of the male gender role:
risk-taking behavior. Men’s activities are
inherently riskier than women’s, and men
take more risks than women during theseM10_HELG0185_04_SE_C10.indd 376 6/21/11 8:54 AM