Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T19:38:04.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

UNNATURAL DEATHS AMONG NUNS AND MONKS: IS THERE A BIOLOGICAL FORCE BEHIND MALE EXTERNAL CAUSE MORTALITY?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2009

MARC LUY
MARC LUY
Affiliation:
Vienna Institute of Demography, Austria
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

It is still unclear if and how biological factors contribute to excess male mortality due to ‘external causes’ (accidents, injuries, homicides and suicides). Sex hormones and reproductive roles are supposed to drive sex differences in behaviours increasing the male external cause mortality risk. This study analyses the external cause mortality of Catholic nuns and monks from three Bavarian cloisters whose similar environments allow the impact of biological factors to be isolated from a number of confounding causes. Using obituaries, entries in the profession books of religious orders and cemetery registers 2533 deaths of nuns and monks could be linked to a specific cause of death for the years 1946–2005, of which 69 belong to the group of external cause deaths. External cause mortality of the Bavarian cloistered and the West German general population has been compared by means of standardized mortality rates (SMRs) for ages 45 onwards using the European age standard for the age groups 45–64, 65–74 and 75+. Whereas nuns show statistically significantly lower external cause mortality than the general female population, monks' external cause mortality parallels or even exceeds that of general population males. These findings contradict the reproductive role hypothesis and provide some evidence for the sex hormones hypothesis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 41 , Issue 6 , November 2009 , pp. 831 - 844
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, F. & Adler, H. M. (1975) Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Barford, A., Dorling, D., Davey Smith, G. & Shaw, M. (2006) Life expectancy: women now on top everywhere. British Medical Journal 332, 808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrow, J. G., Quinlan, C. B., Cooper, G. R., Whitner, V. S. & Goodloe, M. H. R. (1960) Studies in atherosclerosis. III. An epidemiologic study of atherosclerosis in Trappist and Benedictine monks: a preliminary report. Annals of Internal Medicine 52, 368–377.Google Scholar
Bartusch, D. R. J., Lynam, D. R., Moffitt, T. E. & Silva, P. A. (1997) Is age important? Testing a general versus developmental theory of antisocial behavior. Criminology 35, 13–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behm, H. & Vallin, J. (1980) Mortality differentials among human populations. In Preston, S. H. (ed.) Biological and Social Aspects of Mortality and the Length of Life. Ordina Editions, Liège, pp. 11–37.Google Scholar
Cameron, H. M. & McGoogan, E. (1981) A prospective study of 1152 hospital autopsies. Part I: inaccuracies in death certification. Journal of Pathology 133, 273–283.Google Scholar
Carey, A. D. & Lopreato, J. (1995) The biocultural evolution of the male–female mortality differential. Mankind Quarterly 36, 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caspi, A., Begg, D., Dickson, N., Harrington, H., Langley, J., Moffitt, T. E. & Silva, P. A. (1997) Personality differences predict health-risk behaviors in young adulthood: evidence from a longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, 1052–1063.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Daly, M. & Wilson, M. (2001) Risk-taking, intrasexual competition, and homicide. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation 47, 1–36.Google ScholarPubMed
Donovan, J. E. & Jessor, R. (1985) Structure of problem behavior in adolescence and young adulthood. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 53, 890–904.Google Scholar
Fecher, C. J. (1927) Decline of tuberculosis death rates among sisters. America 38, 58–60.Google Scholar
Fox, J. & Hartnagel, T. F. (1979) Changing social roles and female crime in Canada: a time series analysis. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 16, 96–104.Google Scholar
Fraumeni, J. F., Lloyd, J. W., Smith, E. M. & Wagoner, J. K. (1969) Cancer mortality among nuns: role of marital status in etiology of neoplastic disease in women. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 42, 455–468.Google Scholar
Grasmick, H. G., Tittle, C. R., Bursik, R. J. Jr & Arneklev, B. J. (1993) Testing the core empirical implications of Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 30, 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagan, J. (1989) Structural Criminology. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.Google Scholar
Hemström, Ö. (1999) Does the work environment contribute to excess male mortality? Social Science and Medicine 49, 879–894.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hindelang, M. J., Gottfredson, M. R. & Garofalo, J. (1978) Victims of Personal Crime: An Empirical Foundation for a Theory of Personal Victimization. Ballinger, Cambridge, MA, USA.Google Scholar
Hirschi, T. (1969) Causes of Delinquency. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
Holinger, P. C. & Klemen, E. H. (1982) Violent deaths in the United States 1900–1975: relationships between suicide, homicide and accidental deaths. Social Science and Medicine 16, 1929–1938.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jessor, R. (1991) Risk behavior in adolescence: a psychosocial framework for understanding and action. Journal of Adolescent Health 12, 597–605.Google Scholar
Junger, M. & Tremblay, R. E. (1999) Self-control, accidents and crime. Criminal Justice and Behavior 26, 485–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinlen, L. J. (1982) Meat and fat consumption and cancer mortality. A study of strict religious orders in Britain. Lancet 1, 946–949.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kivelä, S-L. (1985) Relationship between suicide, homicide and accidental deaths among the aged in Finland in 1951–1979. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 72, 155–160.Google Scholar
Kolodziej, H., Lopuszanska, M. & Jankowska, E. A. (2008) Decrease in sex difference in premature mortality during system transformation in Poland. Journal of Biosocial Science 40, 297–312.Google Scholar
Leigh, J. P. (1988) Odds ratios of work-related deaths in United States workers. British Journal of Industrial Medicine 45, 158–166.Google ScholarPubMed
Luy, M. (2003) Causes of male excess mortality: insights from cloistered populations. Population and Development Review 29, 647–676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCullagh, E. P. & Lewis, L. A. (1960) A study of diet, blood lipids and vascular disease in Trappist monks. New England Journal of Medicine 263, 569–574.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Madigan, F. C. (1957) Are sex mortality differences biologically caused? Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 35, 202–223.Google Scholar
Madigan, F. C. & Vance, R. B. (1957) Differential sex mortality: a research design. Social Forces 35, 193–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxim, P. S. & Keane, C. (1992) Gender, age, and the risk of violent death in Canada. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 29, 329–345.Google Scholar
Mishra, S. & Lalumière, M. (2009) Is the crime drop of the 1990s in Canada and the USA associated with a general decline in risky and health-related behavior? Social Science and Medicine 68, 39–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Modelmog, D., Rahlenbeck, S. & Trichopoulos, D. (1992) Accuracy of death certificates: a population-based, complete-coverage, one-year autopsy study in east Germany. Cancer Causes and Control 3, 541–546.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nathanson, C. A. (1984) Sex differences in mortality. Annual Review of Sociology 10, 191–213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Osgood, D. W., Johnston, L. D., O'Malley, P. M. & Bachman, J. G. (1988) The generality of deviance in late adolescence and early adulthood. American Sociological Review 53, 81–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porterfield, A. L. (1960) Traffic fatalities, suicide, and homicide. American Sociological Review 25, 897–901.Google Scholar
Retherford, R. D. (1975) The Changing Sex Differential in Mortality. Greenwood Press, Westport, London.Google Scholar
Snowdon, D. A. (2001) Aging with Grace. What the Nun Study Teaches us about Leading Longer, Healthier, and more Meaningful Lives. Bantam Books, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt (1961) Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Mainz.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt (1966) Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1965. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Mainz.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt (1976) Statistisches Jahrbuch 1975 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Mainz.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt (1981) Statistisches Jahrbuch 1980 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Mainz.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt (1986) Statistisches Jahrbuch 1985 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Mainz.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt (1991) Statistisches Jahrbuch 1990 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Metzler-Poeschel, Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt (1996) Statistisches Jahrbuch 1995 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Metzler-Poeschel, Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Trovato, F. & Heyen, N. B. (2006) A varied pattern of change of the sex differential in survival in the G7 countries. Journal of Biosocial Science 38, 169–182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vallin, J. (2006) Mortality, sex, and gender. In Caselli, G., Vallin, J. & Wunsch, G. (eds) Demography: Analysis and Synthesis. Volume II. Elsevier, Amsterdam, Boston, Heidelberg, London, New York, Oxford, Paris, San Diego, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, pp. 177–194.Google Scholar
Waldron, I. (1983a) The role of genetic and biological factors in sex differences in mortality. In Lopez, A. D. & Ruzicka, L. T. (eds) Sex Differentials in Mortality: Trends, Determinants and Consequences. Australian National University Press, Canberra, pp. 141–164.Google Scholar
Waldron, I. (1983b) Sex differences in human mortality: the role of genetic factors. Social Science and Medicine 17, 321–333.Google Scholar
Waldron, I. (1985) What do we know about causes of sex differences in mortality? A review of the literature. Population Bulletin of the United Nations 18, 59–76.Google Scholar
Waldron, I. (1991) Effects of labor force participation on sex differences in mortality and morbidity. In Frankenhaeuser, M., Lundberg, U. & Chesnay, M. (eds) Women, Work, and Health. Plenum Press, New York, London, pp. 17–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallner, B. & Machatschke, I. H. (2009) The evolution of violence in men: the function of central cholesterol and serotonin. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry 33, 391–397.Google Scholar
Wingard, D. L. (1984) The sex differential in morbidity, mortality, and lifestyle. Annual Review of Public Health 5, 433–458.Google Scholar