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Gender and Life Expectancy

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Gender and Life Expectancy It's a phenomena seen in every population and every country: women live longer than men by 4 to 5 years everywhere. At first people tried to explain this fact by saying that men did more dangerous things and therefore died younger. Men ride motorcycles, don't go see the doctor and just take more risks. When the statisticians got done with the data, though, these explanations didn't really explain much. It seems women just live longer. In fact, men are around five times more likely to die from cardiovascular problems than women. Why could this be happening? Life expectancy in the human race has risen dramatically in the past century (Harris, 2009) reaching its highest level for both males and females on record (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2006). Japan currently has the longest surviving individual with a life span averaging 84 years for both men and women (World Health Organization (WHO), 2006). According to Rooney et al (2004) the term life expectancy is defined as ''the number of years that somebody can expect to live, according to statistics (p. 1084).Over the last 100 years, the expectancy of life has increased and the overall goal is to live a long and healthy life. Some social scientists have predicted that the western population has a possible life span within the range of 85-100years. Others have suggested that with medical advances humans can be expected to live beyond these ages. The longest-lived human on record was 122 years

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