At every stage of their life cycle, males are more likely than females to die.
A century ago the gender death gap was just two years. But the gap has grown steadily to five years currently.
Dramatic improvements in women’s health care since then have led to rapid increases in female life expectancy.
In the olden days, men were more likely to die in accidents or war; women faced grim odds in childbirth.
Men have higher propensity to take too many risks, drive too fast, drink too much and ignore healthy habits.
Men also account for 80 per cent of all suicide deaths, mainly because they’re more aggressive than women in attempts on their own lives.
And men begin to suffer cardiac problems seven to nine years earlier than women, largely the result of poorer diet, greater alcohol use and the fact that older men are less physically active than their female peers.
It can be argued that across all three major causes of men dying earlier than women—accidents, suicide and heart disease—men are wholly responsible for their own early graves.
Male life is cheap because that’s how they act. While such an attitude probably explains the overwhelming social indifference to the gender death gap, it doesn’t make it right.