Men, it seems, are doing something wrong. For most of this century, life
expectancy has been consistently lower for men than for women (Furber
1999, 91). Males have “higher mortality than females for total mortality and
for most causes of death in contemporary developed countries” (Waldron
2000, 150). In the United States, “men die more than six years younger than
women” (Courtenay 2000a, 81). But men’s excess mortality cannot be attributed
to biological factors alone; at least part of the blame can be placed on
“psychological, social and behavioral factors” (Helgeson 1995, 62)—that is,
what men are doing.