UC Berkeley Working-age men (15–64 years old) die more frequently than working-age women in nearly all societies that measure vital statistics. One reason for this disparity may be that men tend to behave in ways that are riskier. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, countries restrained risky behavior to reduce the spread of infection. This allowed researchers a peak of what working-age male mortality may look like if that behavior was reduced.
A new analysis by Professor Emeritus Ray Catalano of UC Berkeley School of Public Health is the first to look at how well greater restraint worked for men versus women in Nordic countries during the pandemic.
In a paper published in Science Advances, Catalano found that Nordic countries that shut down during the pre-vaccine pandemic saved working age men but not women. Death was less likely among people aged 15–64 in Denmark, Finland, and Norway than it was for the same age group in Sweden and Iceland, but this was true only for men, not women.