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Causes of Male Excess Mortality: Insights from Cloistered Populations

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  • Marc Luy

Abstract

The degree to which biological factors contribute to the existence and the widening of mortality differences by sex remains unclear. To address this question, a mortality analysis for the years 1890 to 1995 was performed comparing mortality data on more than 11,000 Catholic nuns and monks in Bavarian communities living in very nearly identical behavioral and environmental conditions with life table data for the general German population. While the mortality differences between women and men in the general German population increased considerably after World War II, they remained almost constant among the members of Bavarian religious orders during the entire observation period, with slight advantages for nuns. Thus, the higher differences observable in the general population cannot be attributed to biological factors. The different trends in sex‐specific mortality between the general and the cloistered populations are caused exclusively by men in the general population who were unable to follow the trend in mortality reduction of women, nuns, and especially monks. Under the special environmental conditions of nuns and monks, biological factors appear to confer a maximum survival advantage for women of no more than one year in remaining life expectancy at young adult ages.

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  • Marc Luy, 2003. "Causes of Male Excess Mortality: Insights from Cloistered Populations," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(4), pages 647-676, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:29:y:2003:i:4:p:647-676
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00647.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Junji Kageyama, 2009. "Happiness and sex difference in life expectancy," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-009, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    2. Vincenzo Atella & Federico Belotti & Daejung Kim & Dana Goldman & Tadeja Gracner & Andrea Piano Mortari & Bryan Tysinger, 2021. "The future of the elderly population health status: Filling a knowledge gap," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(S1), pages 11-29, November.
    3. Martin Gaechter & Peter Schwazer & Engelbert Theurl, 2012. "Stronger Sex but Earlier Death: A Multi-level Socioeconomic Analysis of Gender Differences in Mortality in Austria," DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, European Association Comenius - EACO, issue 1, pages 1-23, March.
    4. Marina Vergeles, 2021. "Evolution Of Sex Gap In Life Expectancy Across High-Income Countries: Universal Patterns And Country-Specific Attributes," HSE Working papers WP BRP 98/SOC/2021, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Martin Gächter & Engelbert Theurl, 2010. "Socioeconomic Environment and Mortality: A two-level Decomposition by Sex and Cause of Death," Working Papers 2010-18, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    6. Evelyn Patterson, 2010. "Incarcerating death: Mortality in U.S. state correctional facilities, 1985–1998," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(3), pages 587-607, August.
    7. Frank Trovato, 2005. "Narrowing Sex Differential in Life Expectancy in Canada and Austria: Comparative Analysis," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 3(1), pages 17-52.
    8. Schünemann, Johannes & Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2017. "The gender gap in mortality: How much is explained by behavior?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 79-90.
    9. K. Murthy Ponnapalli, 2005. "A comparison of different methods for decomposition of changes in expectation of life at birth and differentials in life expectancy at birth," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 12(7), pages 141-172.
    10. Trimborn, Timo & Schünemann, Johannes & Strulik, Holger, 2016. "Disentangling the Gender Gap in Longevity," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145570, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Andrea Nigri & Susanna Levantesi & Jose Manuel Aburto, 2022. "Leveraging deep neural networks to estimate age-specific mortality from life expectancy at birth," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(8), pages 199-232.
    12. Qi Cui & Vladimir Canudas-Romo & Heather Booth, 2019. "The Mechanism Underlying Change in the Sex Gap in Life Expectancy at Birth: An Extended Decomposition," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(6), pages 2307-2321, December.
    13. Erich Striessnig & Alessandra Trimarchi, 2023. "How much time is left? International trends in parenthood expectancy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 48(16), pages 421-438.
    14. Marc Luy, 2020. "Understanding the Cross-Sectional Association Between Life Expectancy and Healthy Life Years: The CroHaM Hypothesis," VID Working Papers 2003, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    15. Alina Schmitz & Patrick Lazarevič, 2020. "The gender health gap in Europe’s ageing societies: universal findings across countries and age groups?," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 509-520, December.
    16. Achim Siegel & Jonas F. Schug & Monika A. Rieger, 2022. "Social Determinants of Remaining Life Expectancy at Age 60: A District-Level Analysis in Germany," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-21, January.
    17. Rijpma, Auke & van Dijk, Ingrid K. & Schalk, Ruben & Zijdeman, Richard L. & Mourits, Rick J., 2022. "Unequal excess mortality during the Spanish Flu pandemic in the Netherlands," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    18. Kaschützke, B. & Maurer, R., 2016. "Investing and Portfolio Allocation for Retirement," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 567-608, Elsevier.
    19. Konstantinos N. Zafeiris, 2020. "Gender differences in life expectancy at birth in Greece 1994–2017," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 73-89, March.
    20. Marc Luy & Paola Di Giulio, 2006. "The impact of health behaviors and life quality on gender differences in mortality," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2006-035, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    21. Michael Mühlichen, 2019. "Avoidable Mortality in the German Baltic Sea Region Since Reunification: Convergence or Persistent Disparities?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(3), pages 609-637, July.

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