Sex differentials in premature death among professionals Part II

This is Part II of a two-part article. It explores two hypotheses proposed to explain a reversal of the sex differential in mortality which appears in the 1968–72 death rates of Wisconsin professionals. The first hypothesis proposes that the observed effect is attributable to differentials in the distribution of behavioural risk factors for leading causes of death. Explanatory variables include childlessness, late age at first full-term pregnancy, and relatively high rates of smoking and drinking. Professional men had very low mortality rates from conditions implicating behavioural causes, leading to optimism that low-risk living can introduce a new phase into the epidemiological transition. The second hypothesis posits that the effect may be due to differentials in occupational variables which have systematic gender-divergent outcomes. Occupational levels, tasks, environments and careers all have the potential for such effects. The overall conclusion of the study is that health is systematically related to the quality of support and other conditions in the two major micro-environments for living: work and home.