A population where men live as long as women

Michel Poulain, Université Catholique de Louvain
Gianni Pes, Università degli Studi di Sassari
Luisa Salaris, Université Catholique de Louvain

Women are living longer than men and an advantage of seven years of life expectancy is observed in average. As a consequence at advanced ages women are more numerous. However recent researches show that sex ratio among the oldest olds may be close to one in specific populations and that seems to be more linked with exceptional male longevity than with the existence of disadvantages for women. Among populations with such low sex ratio, Sardinia has brought recently lot of interest and more particularly an in-land area characterised by high male longevity. By collecting complete information on the life span of about 2000 newborns of Villagrande we were able to trace mortality trajectories for both males and females and to describe how men are living as long as women in that specific population. The discussion will revisit the traditional reasons proposed by researchers to explain why usually women live longer.