Why is it that the life expectancy of men shorter than that of women?

Question

Homework..homework..help

Answer 1

it's because men hold in their emotions and women let them out, there for men are more stressed out all the time.

Answer 2

Because men are more accident prone.

Answer 3

There seem to be several factors.

Testosterone.  Makes men edgier, aggressive, and take more risks resulting in more accidental deaths and in general more "risky behavior," drugs, extreme sports and so on.

Estrogen and progesterone, the 'female' hormones.  These protect women from heart attacks until menopause.  SO women do not drop dead from heart attacks until after the age of forty-ish.  Men do, this drops the life expectancy average significantly.

Culture.  Men until very recently were expected to be the wage earners.  This put them in higher constant daily stress situations which takes a toll and leads to several health problems, making them vulnerable to ulcers, heart attacks, stroke etc.

DNA.  Some researchers think that the larger DNA of women somehow translate into longer lives.  Not proven but most people in the field see a relationship, at least statistical.

Incidentally, woman are closing the gap.  As women take up men's vices, cigarettes, more dangerous competition and enter the market place more women are dying younger, and the gap seems to be closing, while the longevity of both goes up.  (This is more visible in Europe where life expectancy is higher than in the U.S., and more women are competing with men at higher levels in government and industry.)