ANSWER TO CORRESPONDENT.

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 35, 11 February 1933, Page 20

ANSWER TO CORRESPONDENT.

"Anxious."—No name enclosed.

MEN, WOMEN, AND AGE

WHY WOMEN LIVE LONGER

Why do.women live longer than menf, The fact seems to puzzle scientists and; doctors, for every year that passes make* the disparity more pronounced (states a writer in. the London" "Daily Mail")*

Eighteen centenarians died in, 1933, according to the official records.. Of these, fifteen were women, and only; three -men. -.-■'...'

Statistics of the Registrar-General show that there are now alive in Bng« land and Wales, more than 91,000 men: and women over the age of 85, and of these the women outnumbered the men! by nearly two to one. . A man's average -expectation of Ufa is now 56 years and'a woman's 60."

THEY DO NOT PEEL SO OLD. The- manager of the life-insurance branch of one of the largest insurance companies: told a reporter recently; that tho greater longevity^ o£ women is an accepted fact, by aU.insuranca companies, who are compelled to give less favourable terms to women than t» men in annuities. . ■ -. If the disparity continues, as it la* been lately, to become morerandinore pronounced, it maybe necessary for. the companies to revise their- tables still further to the disadvantage of ' women. '-:;.;... Medical men generally gave two rea* sons for the greater ages of women:! (1) Women are subjected to'-less'men-tal stress than men; they do not:worrjj so much. ' -.'■ ■» (2) Women almost all through life axai stronger physically than men. This disposes finally of the old saying about women being the weaker vessel^ Sir Humphry Kolleston, in a book iec^ntly published, says that of people! over 99 there are nearly three women, to every man. He adds the significant remark that old women do not feel £$> old. as old men.

The deaths recorded "last -year .alt*) confirm the statistics of past years which prove that married women live longer, on the average, than single women. . . ■: .

Here are some more facts, quoted to the "Daily Mail "I by the New Health Society, to prove that woman is really; the stronger vessel.

Each year about 1045 boys are bora to every 1000 girls, yet, when both, boys and girls have, grown up,'.there are nearly 9 per cent, more women than. men-^a1 surplus in fact of nearly, 2,000,000 females in the population.

Out of every 2300 children still-born, 1300 are boys and only 1000 girls. Nearly twice as many men as women have to wear spectacles.

Stammering and other speech defects are three times as frequent among mea as among women., AND KOT SO INTEBIOB.

Summing up the facts in the society's magazine, Mr. J. S. Bainbridge says: Centuries of undeserved repress sion have developed a very strong feminine inferiority complex, so that at present our pride may still be salved and the fiction still upheld that we men are lords of the earth 'and woman but a weaker vessel. But this inferiority cumplex is fast disappearing, and th.en—well, what can we do?

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