MEN will soon be outliving women for the first time since records began after abandoning unhealthy, macho lifestyles.
If you’re a boy born in 2000 and you make it to 30, you can expect to match girls of the same age by living to the ripe old age of 87.1.
Researchers predict younger males will then go on to surpass the life spans of their female counterparts.
In 1970, a man aged 30 was expected to die 5.7 years before a woman the same age.
The common view has been that men are condemned to earlier graves by underlying genetic factors – despite growing life expectancies for both sexes.
But Leslie Mayhew, professor of statistics at Cass Business School at London’s City University, points to lifestyle changes to explain his forecast.
“There has been a huge decline in the numbers working in heavy industry; far fewer males smoke now, and there is much better treatment for heart disease, which tends to affect males more than females,” he told The Sunday Times.
Lung cancer rates have halved among men since 1975 and nearly doubled in women.
But the forecast does not match that of the Office of National Statistics, which predicts a boy born in 2000 who reaches 30 can expect to die 3.5 years before a girl the same age.
Prof Mayhew argues that the ONS has been consistently too cautious in acknowledging shifts in life expectancy in recent decades. His forecast excludes Scotland, where men are let down by lifestyle factors.
Who would have thought opening doors for ladies and standing up when a woman enters the room were so dangerous?
Oh. It hadn’t occurred to me that current rudeness was what was increasing men’s lifespans. And I thought all that standing and extra exercise opening doors and shifting chairs was heart healthy…
Put differently, women live longer without feminism.
And men live relatively longer with it, which makes perfect sense (except for the STDs, of course).