[helene_t]

Yeah, there was also once talk about radiology nurses in Denmark having something like 90% girls. Presumably boys are more vulnerable to radiation because of the single X chromosome. Dunno if those studies have been reproduced.

[kenberg]

From the 2000 USA census

www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/censr-20.pdf


Here are some figures. Going across the numbers are: Age group; # of men ; # of women; percentage of men in that age group

0-4 &&& 9,755,707 &&& 9,291,047 &&& 51.2%

30-34 &&& 10,219,811 &&& 10,145,302 &&& 50.2%

60-64 &&& 5,114,578 &&& 5,673,401 &&& 47.4%

85+ &&& 1,203,376 &&& 2,957,185 &&& 28.9%

[barmar]

From http://www.drdaveand.../longevity.html

Quote

Life expectancy tables give average life expectancy depending on year of birth. For example, life expectancy for someone born 2009 is 80.0 for females and 74.88 for males, an age difference of about 5 years (Social Security Administration at www.ssa.gov, 2009).

However, life expectancy increases with age, and the male/female difference decreases. For example, someone who is 60 years old in 2009, a female's life expectancy is 83.34 and a male's is 80.01, a difference of about 3 years. But, someone who is 100 in 2009 has a life expectancy of 102.36 if female and 102.02 if male, a difference of 0.34.

I think the reduction in the male/female difference as you get older is because many of the factors that reduce male life expectancy apply mostly to younger men. Violence tends to be more extreme among teenagers and twenty-somethings. Congenital problems are more likely to kill children (put another way, if you make it past childhood, it probably isn't serious enough to kill you).

[helene_t]

But Barmar, even if male mortality is always higher than female mortality, for example by a factor (say) 1.1 regardless of age, you would observe that the female/male ratio gets higher the higher the age.

What you say is probably true, though, except that in some countries maternal death during labor causes mortality to be higher among females than males in a certain age range. And, as have been mentioned by others, in some countries baby girls are more likely to die than baby boys, due to neglect or outright murder.