Are Sex Mortality Differentials Biologically Caused? Madigan Revisited by a New Comparison of Sex-Specific Survival in Monastic and General Population

Marc A. Luy, Federal Institute for Population Research, Germany

The basic idea of Madigan that there are no behavioral differences between nuns and monks is still a good starting point for examining causes of sex mortality differences. To carry out such a study data was collected of 11,624 nuns and monks from eleven monasteries. The results show that in the first half of the 20th century survivorship conditions between monastic and general population and thus sex differences are almost the same. While after World War II male excess mortality increased steadily in the German population, a similar development can't be seen in the monastery population. The data shows distinctly, that the rising sex differences in the general population are solely due to the males of the general population. In improvement of survival conditions they lag significantly behind German women, nuns, and monks, the latter showing the same survival difference to the female population as they did before World War II.