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Gender Differences In Mortality

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Mortality refers to the finite nature of the human race, people do not live forever eventually they die. In demography, the term mortality refers to the number of deaths in a certain geographic area at a given time. The measure for the number of deaths is called mortality rate and these rates can be high or low across the world because of various factors. Due to the various factors, mortality can differ significantly between different segments of the population in the same country. These factors include but not limited to socio-economic factors such as education, income, occupation, religious backgrounds, poverty as well as war and conflict.
Gender differences
In developed countries such as the United States of America, there I a gender gap …show more content…

Adult women under the age of 65 in the USA report more doctor visits than men, with the gender gap broadest among people aged 18-44. This is because of medical care associated with reproduction (NCHS 2006). Moreover, men drink alcohol more, and more often, than women and are more than twice as likely to die from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (Miniño et al 2006). Possibly most importantly, more men smoke cigarettes than women, even though this difference is basically non-existent at younger ages. Smoking is particularly significant in this case because approximations suggest that increasing rates of smoking among men, relative to women, accounted for 75% of the increase in the gender gap in mortality between 1910 and 1962 (Retherford 1975).Current approximations suggest that smoking accounts for 25% of the overall sex mortality difference, and much more when cancer and respiratory disease mortality are separately considered (Rogers & Hummer …show more content…

One religion of interest is the Johanne Masowe Chishanu (JMC) which is mostly dominant in the Manicaland province in Zimbabwe. This religion has certain beliefs and practices which increase mortality rates especially those associated with maternal deaths. According to Anderson (2001) diseases are seen by the JMC members as having spiritual causes and cures. Chipungudzanye (2003) adds that JMC members refuse to use modern medicine and believe that prophets and other church elders with the gift of healing provide medical care for church members. They also believe that any illness or health related misfortunes are a result of witchcraft, thus, there is need for witchcraft detecting and eradication (Farhadian 2007). The JMC also prohibits the use of contraceptives and getting medical care for

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