Recent Trends in Sex Mortality Differentials in the United States

Abstract

Since 1920, American men, to an increasing degree, have experienced higher levels of mortality than American women for virtually all causes of death at almost every age. Recently, several authors have asserted that there is evidence of a change in these trends, caused primarily by rises in the levels of female mortality. Using age-adjusted death rates and data for the most recent years available (1960–1974), this paper shows that most female death rates are either stable or falling, and that the sex mortality differential for all causes except lung cancer is either stable or increasing.

Index Terms:

• sex differenced
• mortality trends
• cardiovascular disease
• cancers
• suicide
• respiratory disorders
• cirrhosis of the liver
• homicide
• accidents
• diabetes