Leviatan U, Cohen J
Soc Sci Med. 1985;21(5):545-51. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(85)90039-5.
A literature review of findings reveals that the life expectancy (LE) of females is longer than that of males and that a strong relationship exists between LE and gender differences in LE. The arguments of biological vs societal reasons for such gender differences are presented and the kibbutz society is offered as a setting to test the rivaling hypotheses. It is argued that the kibbutz society offers more similar roles for both genders than outside the kibbutz and therefore the gender differences in LE should be reduced in comparison to what is expected, given the very high LE of kibbutz members. Statistical data of the kibbutz population between the years 1975-1980 are analyzed and the results support the following conclusions: female members have higher LE but the difference is much less than expected on the basis of a regression analysis of data from 73 societies; the difference is smaller due to the relatively higher gain in LE by males; the gender differences are even smaller at age 50 compared to LE differences at birth. The Discussion section dwells upon interpretations of the findings and argues against alternative interpretations that assume selection processes for the kibbutz population. Suggestions for further studies are also made.
对研究结果的文献综述表明，女性的预期寿命长于男性，而且预期寿命与预期寿命的性别差异之间存在密切关系。文中阐述了造成这种性别差异的生物学原因与社会原因之争，并以基布兹社会作为一个环境来检验相互竞争的假设。有人认为，与基布兹之外的情况相比，基布兹社会为两性提供了更为相似的角色，因此，鉴于基布兹成员的预期寿命非常高，与预期情况相比，基布兹成员预期寿命的性别差异应该会缩小。对1975年至1980年间基布兹人口的统计数据进行了分析，结果支持以下结论：女性成员的预期寿命更高，但这种差异远小于根据对73个社会的数据进行回归分析得出的预期；由于男性预期寿命的相对增幅较高，差异较小；与出生时的预期寿命差异相比，50岁时的性别差异更小。讨论部分详述了对研究结果的解读，并反驳了那些假定基布兹人口存在选择过程的其他解读。文中还提出了进一步研究的建议。
