Why the world has more women than men
The next population census will be in 2012. And as always, women will still be more than men. Worldwide, research over the years reveals some interesting facts.
By paul semugoma
The next population census will be in 2012. And as always, women will still be more than men. Worldwide, research over the years reveals some interesting facts.
Men and women are just not equal. One sex always has the upper hand in numbers at any one point in time.
Known facts include;
l World wide at birth baby boys exceed girls, with 106 boys to 100 girls
l Through life, boys and men die off faster than girls and women
lWomen live longer.
What happens?
Men are the ‘weaker’ sex. They have to start off life in larger numbers. So, at conception, it is believed that there are 120 male foetuses to every 100 female.
Yet even in the womb, the female survives better. Most failed pregnancies are male. At birth, there are only 106 boy babies for every 100 girls.
After birth, life is harder for men. The age specific death rate for the boy and man is higher than for women.
The female has better health immunologically, physiologically and even a lower parasite burden.
The boy and man are prone to health-risk-taking behaviour; from sex without a condom, to smoking, drinking, and ‘extreme sports’. Men work in more dangerous occupations and die in war and industrial or traffic accidents.
Diseases of the heart and vessels and suicides are more common in men.
Nature has worked it out that there is a man for every woman (1:1 ratio) at around puberty but men continue dying off faster as people grow older.
Why?
Nature follows a ruthless logic. For the survival of any specie, a female is very important. If you consider the investment of a woman into the next generation, you can figure out why.
The man invests his sperms (and that is all, for many). But for the woman, the female egg is larger, followed by nine months of pregnancy, breastfeeding for a year, and more care. The woman is simply indispensable.
Of course it works better with both parents around, but guess who is more ‘important’ to the survival of the next generation. So nature has built into the female genes a better survival advantage than for the male half of the specie.
Deficit narrowing?
Social cultural factors are at work in some countries to change this imbalance.
In China, the law only allows one child per couple. Society prefers boys to girls, so girl pregnancies are aborted. In India, the girl child is considered a social financial burden.
When she grows up, she will need a huge dowry to be married off. So Indian parents abort girl foetuses, and girl babies are killed, to such an extent that some villages have only boy children.
Thus in the most populous countries, with more than two billion of the world’s six billion people, there are millions less women than men.
So, the deficit is narrowing.
Ugandan society is changing rapidly. Improvements in health favour survival of the male.
This has occurred in ‘developed’ countries, though even there, the genetic superiority of the woman is still evident. But for the time being, men have a few more ladies to choose from, though it may not likely be for long!
The writer is a
medical doctor
The next population census will be in 2012. And as always, women will still be more than men. Worldwide, research over the years reveals some interesting facts.
Men and women are just not equal. One sex always has the upper hand in numbers at any one point in time.
Known facts include;
l World wide at birth baby boys exceed girls, with 106 boys to 100 girls
l Through life, boys and men die off faster than girls and women
lWomen live longer.
What happens?
Men are the ‘weaker’ sex. They have to start off life in larger numbers. So, at conception, it is believed that there are 120 male foetuses to every 100 female.
Yet even in the womb, the female survives better. Most failed pregnancies are male. At birth, there are only 106 boy babies for every 100 girls.
After birth, life is harder for men. The age specific death rate for the boy and man is higher than for women.
The female has better health immunologically, physiologically and even a lower parasite burden.
The boy and man are prone to health-risk-taking behaviour; from sex without a condom, to smoking, drinking, and ‘extreme sports’. Men work in more dangerous occupations and die in war and industrial or traffic accidents.
Diseases of the heart and vessels and suicides are more common in men.
Nature has worked it out that there is a man for every woman (1:1 ratio) at around puberty but men continue dying off faster as people grow older.
Why?
Nature follows a ruthless logic. For the survival of any specie, a female is very important. If you consider the investment of a woman into the next generation, you can figure out why.
The man invests his sperms (and that is all, for many). But for the woman, the female egg is larger, followed by nine months of pregnancy, breastfeeding for a year, and more care. The woman is simply indispensable.
Of course it works better with both parents around, but guess who is more ‘important’ to the survival of the next generation. So nature has built into the female genes a better survival advantage than for the male half of the specie.
Deficit narrowing?
Social cultural factors are at work in some countries to change this imbalance.
In China, the law only allows one child per couple. Society prefers boys to girls, so girl pregnancies are aborted. In India, the girl child is considered a social financial burden.
When she grows up, she will need a huge dowry to be married off. So Indian parents abort girl foetuses, and girl babies are killed, to such an extent that some villages have only boy children.
Thus in the most populous countries, with more than two billion of the world’s six billion people, there are millions less women than men.
So, the deficit is narrowing.
Ugandan society is changing rapidly. Improvements in health favour survival of the male.
This has occurred in ‘developed’ countries, though even there, the genetic superiority of the woman is still evident. But for the time being, men have a few more ladies to choose from, though it may not likely be for long!
The writer is a
medical doctor