Scientists confirm what women always knew: men really are the weaker sex | Global development | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/15/scientists-confirm-what-women-always-knew-men-really-are-the-weaker-sex
Women are more likely than men to survive in times of famine and epidemics, research has found.
While it has long been known that women have a higher life expectancy than men in general, analysis of historical records stretching back 250 years shows that women have, for example, outlived men on slave plantations in Trinidad, during famines in Sweden and through various measles outbreaks in Iceland.
Even when mortality was very high for both sexes, women still outlived men, on average, by six months to four years, according to the report (pdf) by Duke University in North Carolina.
The datasets included seven groups of people for whom life expectancy was 20 years or under for one or both sexes. Among them were working and former slaves in Trinidad and the US in the early 1800s; people experiencing famine in Sweden, Ireland and the Ukraine in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries; and Icelanders affected by the 1846 and 1882 measles epidemics.
Lead researcher Virginia Zarulli, from the University of Southern Denmark’s Institute of Public Health, attributed the life expectancy gender gap to biological factors such as genetics and hormones, with the simple conclusion that “newborn girls are hardier than newborn boys”.