Earlier Death of Men (The Evolution of Desire)

Men die, on average, 4 to 6 years earlier than women in the U.S.

Men are more likely to get infections than women, have more accidents including falls, poisonings, drownings, firearm accident, car crashes, fires, and explosions. Men are 30 percent more likely to die from accidents in their first 4 years of life and have a 400 percent higher mortality from accidents by the time they reach adulthood.

Men are murdered almost three times as often as women, men die taking risks more often than women, and they commit suicide nearly three times more often than women.

The reason for men’s higher mortality comes from their sexual psychology. The same is true for many male mammalian species. There are tremendous benefits to being a winner, and hefty reproductive penalties for being a loser.

Men who are mateless for life outnumber similarly mateless women in every society.

Adaptive logic suggests that the greater risk taking—and hence greater death rate—should occur among men who are at the bottom of the mating pool and who therefore risk getting shut out entirely. Men who are unemployed, unmarried, and young are greatly overrepresented in risky activities, ranging from gambling to lethal fights.

In ancestral times, the reproductive gains that risk-taking men achieved compared to the reproductive dead ends that awaited more cautious men have favored traits that yield success in competition among males at the expense of success at longevity. In the currency of sheer survival, survival through mate competition has been rough on men.

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Related posts:

1. Will It Fly Summary (7/10)
2. Modern Man in Search of a Soul Summary (8/10)
3. Part 2: Stir Up The Transgressive and Taboo (The Art of Seduction)
4. Chapter 19: And They Lived Happily Every After (Sapiens)