Stat Stuff

I was checking out some Census figures and saw an interesting statistic. According to the 2000 Census, women outnumbered men in the United States by 5.3 million. This means that there are approximately 96 men for every 100 women. Yet for every 100 girls below the age of 5, there were almost 105 boys. The number hovers around 105 all the way up into the mid-teens, and then starts to decline. The descent continues through all the remaining years.

By 25, one of the 105 guys will have succumbed to the “hey, y’all … watch this” factor. Somewhere in their late twenties – and after a couple beers, no doubt – two more guys will have gone out with some sort of bang, as will three in their early thirties.

Below 35 there are 2.8 million more men than women. 51.5% of the men in this country today are under that age; 52.3% of women are over it. For every 100 late-thirty something women, 99 guys remain. And one of those guys won’t make it over the hill.

And then we guys start going out with a pang … a chest pang, that is.

One guy drops in his early forties, one more in his late forties, one more early fifties. Three more will assume room temperature in their late fifties. At this point, we’ve gone from 5 extra guys per 100 women to six fewer. By the late sixties, there are only 86 guys left, 16 of whom won’t wake up from their naps over the next decade.

World War II starts to have an impact on the octogenarians. The Beach Boys sang about “two girls for every boy” – well, that’s how it is once you get into your eighties. Of course, by that time it doesn’t really matter.

So what does this say? We guys are obviously doing more to extending the life of the Social Security trust fund (payments cease when you do). One could argue that this shows that women have more endurance than men. On the flip side, one could also argue that dealing with women is more difficult than dealing with men. (Notice how the male fatalities start ratcheting up around marriage age? Look at the mortality spike at the age of “the change”!)

We are either weaker, more stressed, or simply disposable. Or it could be that we are less stubborn – instead of sticking around after the party’s over, we leave when it’s time to go. That 5.3 million gender differential mentioned above completely accounted for in the septuagenarian-and-above crowd – there are 10 million 70+ men and 15.4 million women. At some point the kids are more interested in the inheritance than the tales of how we accumulated it, anyways.

When does that point come? Depends.