If the chance of having a girl or boy is 50/50 why has is the population 51/49?

Question

The populatiion of the world is about 51% female, 49% male (with the exception of India). Explain the reason for this if the genetic odds are 50/50.

Answer 1

Because guys have a higher chance of dying. Always have always will. Figure that most military people in the world are male. Men are bigger risk takers too.

Also, Women live longer. We take better care of our bodies because Paris Hilton insists on wearing clothing that could have been made from the cotton in an aspirin bottle.

Answer 2

Don't forget that a few males probably die off from getting drunk and fighting with people way bigger than them, or copying something out of jackass.

Answer 3

Many reasons.  First, there is a slightly greater chance of having a girl.  Makes sense.  To keep your population growing, but not too fast, it's best to have a few more women than men, as you only really need a few men to impregnate a lot of women.

Secondly, men are more likely to die young, and their lifespans aren't as long as women's.  Since women have two X chromosomes, if one doesn't work properly, our bodies just use the other one.  Guys don't have that, so they're more prone to genetic diseases.  They're also more likely to engage in risky behavior or to be violent than women are, especially in the younger years, so they're more likely to die that way.  Most snakebite victims are guys with bites on their hands, for instance.  And, while women are more likely to be depressed, men are more likely to successfully commit suicide.  And, if a guy manages to survive all of that, he's still more likely to get heart disease than a woman is.

Those early deaths are numerous enough that it skews the population more towards women, particularly in the older groups.

Answer 4

Boys appear to have slightly higher mortality rates, almost from the start, and women live longer. That is enough to skew the ratio.

Answer 5

not so. the population to day is 4 woman to one man

Answer 6

IN my province its the contrary, we have 98 males for 100 females! And this figure is far from being true for the globe! China, Saudi Arabia, Koweit, Qatar, Iran, Pakistan have all a ratio over 120 men for 100 girls, because whether or not we want to admit it, our society in general (and some regions in particular) have a biased toward boy, which forced them to negatively select the gender of their child (abortions and on). So boy are seen more valuable than girls in many societies! Which is a shame, as when girls are outnumbering men, they have selection pressure that happen to make girls look much more beautiful than when the ratio is reversed (as it is much more difficult for them to find a man if they are more numerous, so to compete better, their physical attributes are getting more attractives, than if too much men were accessibles).

So this world is sexist...

Answer 7

This is because girls have a slight genetic edge over boys in terms of the health and stamina needed to survive infancy.  People in India and elsewhere who kill female offspring either in utero or after birth are flat-out stupid and crazy.

Answer 8

Usaully because the guys do things that get them killed, i.e fight with people they shouldnt fight with

Go to war

perhaps contract s*x diseases from tooooooo many s*x partners,

ohhh male babies are more fragile than female ones so they die off easier

Yes they are also more successfull in commiting suicide than we women. we women may ATTEMPT it more, but we usually dont use reliable, time-tested methods to bring about our own demise. Guys are more practical and get the deed done better

So there goes, thats why we outnumber them

but the way some countries are going and you know them, it looks like we'll soon be outnumbered by the guys. Which is ok for me cos I like guys fighting over me. Yippiieeeee

Answer 9

Because there are many factors that can throw off the 50/50 ratio. In fact the 50/50 ratio is far from inevitable. The human species could do just fine if there were 4 women for every man; males are less valuable than females biologically because females do most of the actual work of reproduction. On the other hand males are more efficient at having lots of offspring, so men with lots of Y carrying sperm who have lots of sons have more offspring. The 50/50 s*x ratio represents a stalemate between these two conflicting evolutionary imperatives.

In some species of reptiles, like Komodo dragons, as much as 75% of individuals are male.

As others have said, the main reason is that males tend to have higher rates of fetal miscarriage and lower lifespans.

Answer 10

50/50 odds doesn't mean that the result will always be 50/50.

Coin tosses are 50/50, and yet heads wins most of the time. Same idea. it won't always be equal, even tho the odds are 50/50.

Answer 11

Because male fetuses miscarry at a higher rate than female, Because male babies die at a higher rate than females and because women live longer than men.  The reason for the first two medical researchers think is because  of the fact that there are two x chromosomes with the female fetus and only one with the male. There for if something is wrong with the x chromosome there's no way of making up for the deficit.

Where the female has two if there is something wrong with one the other can make up for the deficit.

Answer 12

Well it could only be 50/50 since there's two s*x and only one baby(most of the time) can come out. Also, most people don't just have 2 kids some have 1 will others have 15, which throws off the equation.  If one family have a 2 boy will another have 5 girls clearly there will be a higher percentage of females. Also, women live longer than men do.

Answer 13

I believe that genetically, or something to do with reproduction, there is just an ever so slight greater likelihood of a chromosomes being XX rather than XY

Answer 14

The main reason is that women live longer. A secondary reason is that male's have more fatal accidents (car crashes and risk-taking behaviour are more prevalent in males)