| Show f C tp kate far men lower women fast losing the advantage they formerly had statistics show washington women are arc last losing tho the advantage which they have possessed in the past of a lower rate of mortality than men it Is indicated by life insurance statistics the excess mortality of men over women it Is said has been one of the supposed fixed relationships in vital statistics in the united states the death rate of males has always been found to be higher than that of females at every everi age period from birth till death and this condition has prevailed quite generally throughout the civilized world in recent years however the mortality of females has actually been higher than that of males among the industrial policy holders of the insurance companies in the united states and canada in 1911 the mortality of white males insured in one company was more than 13 per c ent cent higher than among females while the actual excess in male mortality varied somewhat from year to year the condition continued up to and including 1018 change also noted in negro race the year 1919 1019 was marked ma ked by a drop to about 5 per cent and by 1920 a reversal in the relationship had become a tact fact with the female mortality 26 per cent above that of males in 1921 it was 12 per cent higher in 1922 the condition was again changed to an excess of 12 per cent in male mortality over that of females la in the negro race the difference between the death rate of the two sexes was never so strikingly marked but nevertheless between 1912 and 1918 the excess of male mortality was continuous varying from 2 to about 10 per cent the y year ear 1919 was the first year in which the mortality of females actually exceeded that for males I 1 and this condition has bas continued since including the year 1922 the fact that reversal reversa appears among both white end and negro lives Is considered significant very similar relationships in the mortality rates of males and females are apparently in dIca dilated ted it Is pointed out in the figures for the registration area during the corresponding years and light Is thrown on the possible factors by consideration alder atlon of the age periods of life where these changes were most pronounced noun ced greatest at childbearing child bearing age it Is shown that among white persons the excess of female mortality was entirely limited to the ages of twenty to thirty four in 1921 and to fifteen to thirty four in 1920 among the negroes it occurred between the ages of ten and thirty four in 1921 ten and twenty four in 1919 and one and thirty four in 1920 0 after age of thirty five the male mortality has con tinned to be higher thila than the female throughout the rest of life the ages says bays the report are definitely those of childbearing child bearing they are also the ages at which the influenza epidemic made its greatest inroads and in which tuberculosis showed the most pronounced decreases decrease during the last decade it to Is entirely conceivable comments the statistician that each one of these three items played an important part la in the phenomenon under consideration attention has been repeatedly called in recent years to the excessive mortality among women from causes incidental to pregnancy and childbearing child bearing these excessive maternal death rates having shown it Is said the greatest reluctance toward improvement the influenza epidemic beginning with 1918 it Is thought may have been the exciting cause for much of this increased maternal mort mortality allty it having been noted early in the lullu influenza outbreaks that women at the childbearing child bearing ages suffered buffered excessively from the disease this condition has been marked with each new outbreak of 0 influenza it la Is further brought forward that there Is no question as to the eister ei iter reduction of tuberculosis mortality among males than among female and this Is strikingly marked in the ages under consideration |
