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According to this article there are more boys born in the USA than girls.

between 1940 and 2005, an average of almost 92,000 more males than females were born annually in the United States.

According to city comparison, though, there are more women than men.

What is happening here? The only explanation could be that the men are dying earlier then women. Is this deviance across all ages or just in older age?

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    Women live longer on average than men. So extreme, you count women born in the last 80 years vs. men born in the last 70 years.
    – gnasher729
    Oct 19, 2022 at 14:44
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    Don'f torget that the population of a country isn't a function only of birth and death; there is also immigration and emigration, which could be gender-imbalanced for many reasons. Oct 19, 2022 at 15:19
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    @NateEldredge, you can write an answer and show us statistics proving there is more male immigrants(legal). But I think the statistics is based on the US citizens on residents.
    – Grasper
    Oct 19, 2022 at 16:26
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    @Grasper: AFAIK the term "population", unless otherwise specified, counts all inhabitants, without regard to citizenship or legal immigration status. I don't have statistics on im/emigration by gender. I'm just disagreeing with your assertion that men dying earlier is the "only explanation" and saying that you ought to consider the possibility of people entering/leaving while still alive. Oct 21, 2022 at 2:45
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    How is this a skeptics question? As you write yourself, the statistic that you show does not contradict the claim that is made. Why do you doubt the claim?
    – Carsten S
    Oct 21, 2022 at 12:07

2 Answers 2

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This happens everywhere, not only in the USA, though the degree of disparity varies from country to country.

Gender Ratio - Our World in Data provides a lot of information on this topic.

The two most relevant details are:

  • Women, on average, live longer than men. This means that all else being equal, we would expect females to account for slightly more than half of the total population.
  • sex ratios at birth are not equal. In all countries, there are more male than female births.

For most countries, there are around 105 males per 100 female births.

the sex ratio at conception is equal: there is no difference in the number of males and females conceived. For births to be consistently male-biased, there must be gender differences in the probability of miscarriage through pregnancy.

That is, females are less likely than males to survive until birth, while after birth, males have a lower life expectancy than females.

While dangerous situations (e.g. employment, risky behaviour, and war) contribute to the male death rate, the difference becomes most significance at higher ages where these factors don't apply:

Sex ratio by age

Deliberate sex-selection may slightly contribute to the antenatal rates (as can be seen during certain periods in some countries), but is not the general cause:

Sex ratio at birth

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Oddthinking
    Oct 21, 2022 at 8:33
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    Reminder: We don't care about your political views, and the comments box is not a place to share them.
    – Oddthinking
    Oct 21, 2022 at 8:34
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    "Risky behaviour" in youth, for example smoking or exposure to asbestos at work, or even sport, can affect death rates in later life. Oct 21, 2022 at 23:35
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It is true that more boys are born (here for figures from 1983 to 2008), but if you look at the following page

Social Security Actuarial Life Table

you will readily see that in the United States, a male of any given age was more likely to die in 2019 than a female of the same age. The disparity (both relative and absolute) is smallest at age 10 (which is also the age with the lowest combined mortality). The disparity ramps up in the teenage years and reaches its relative peak in the early twenties. It declines after this point, but parity is not achieved until well past the age of 100.

That higher probability of dying, year over year, adds up; the table shows the math.

The causes? We know that young boys and young men are more prone to risky behavior (as the comment to the OP suggests). It is also known that men suffer higher rates of suicide, are the victims of the majority of murders, and comprise over 90% of combat fatalities and occupational fatalities. I suspect that differing rates of smoking, drinking, and on-the-job exposure to environmental hazards are also involved.

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    A major (albeit contrary) cause of gender disparity is that in less developed nations, many women die in childbirth, and when there is less access to contraception/abortion they give birth more often, increasing the risk.
    – Stuart F
    Oct 21, 2022 at 12:55
  • @Stuart. I'm probably going to delete the references to other countries, as it's not really germane.
    – EvilSnack
    Oct 22, 2022 at 1:09

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