Mortality Comparisons; The Male-Female Ratio

Abstract

The mortality of two groups can be compared in many ways, and these give surprisingly different results. For the United States 1967 the ratio of male to female mortality is 1.613 on the usual direct standardization, 1.874 when relatives (ratios of male to female death rates age by age) are weighted by the female population; the ratio of the male to the female death rate in the stationary population is 1.108. Can the excess mortality of males be expressed in a marrower range than 11 per cent to 87 per cent?