(4) The biological fact of sex also influences death rate. Males in
general are shorter-lived than females. This is in part due to the fact
that in human populations men are more exposed to the dangers of
industry in earning a livelihood, while women are more secluded in the
home. But this does not explain entirely the discrepancy in the death
rate of the two sexes, for boy babies under the same conditions die more
frequently than girl babies. As we have already seen, the female
organism is the more stable, biologically, and hence females, while
having less physical strength, have more vitality than males. In Great
Britain the death rate (1872-1880) for the males was 22.7 per thousand
of the male population annually, while the death rate for the females
was 20.2 per thousand of their population annually.

(5) Conjugal condition is also a factor which affects death rate. The
differences between the death rates of the married and unmarried have
long been noted. The following table of the death rates of males and
females of different conjugal classes between the ages of forty and
fifty years (in Germany, 1876-1880), taken from Professor Mayo-Smith's
_Statistics and Sociology_, illustrates this:


Single males ....................... 26.5 per thousand
Married males ...................... 14.2 " "
Widowed males ...................... 29.9 " "

Single females ..................... 15.4 " "
Married females .................... 11.4 " "
Widows ............................. 13.4 " "