《经济学人》[2010.08.11]Ahealthyrelationship一种(与)健康(相关)的关系.doc

2010.08.11 A healthy relationship 一种（与）健康（相关）的关系Health and the sex ratio 健康和性别比例A healthy relationship 一种（与）健康（相关）的关系The mere presence of women seems to bring health benefits to men 女性的出现对于男性的健康有好处的Aug 11th 2010FOR hormone-addled teenagers, finding a date can often seem to be a matter of life and death. As it turns out, that may not be so far from the truth. In a paper in the August issue of Demography, a team of researchers led by Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University reports that men who reach sexual maturity in an environment with few available women are at risk of dying sooner than their luckier confrres. The team points out that this finding may have important implications for public health in countries such as India and China, where sex ratios are skewed against women.内分泌紊乱的年轻人有机会约会看起来是一个生死攸关的大事，结果与事实相去不远。在人口学八月刊的一篇文章中，一组哈佛大学的尼古拉斯?克里斯塔领导的研究人员报道了处于无法接触女性的环境的性成熟期男性将比他们幸运的兄弟可能死得更快。该小组指出这项发现可能对印度、中国等国家的公众健康具有重要意义。这些国家的的男性比例都比女性要高。The idea that a dearth of available women hurts male longevity has been around for some time. There are several reasons why such a hypothesis makes sense. It is now well established that marriage has a beneficial effect on health and survival. Since women are traditionally the caregivers, these benefits accrue especially to men. If there are fewer potential mates around, men may delay marriage or forgo it entirely, losing out on these nuptial niceties. In addition, with more men and fewer single women, the intense competition for a mate is likely to be stressful. Such early-life stress is known to have effects on health that can last for years.女性缺乏影响男性寿命的观点已经存在了一段时间了。有几项原因支持该推测。现在已经证实婚姻对健康和生存有正面影响。因为传统上女性都会照顾别人，这些益处对男性来说就特别突出了。如果附近潜在的伴侣不多，男性可能会晚婚，甚至完全不婚，完全不知婚姻的这些美好之处。另外，随着较多的男性和的较少的单身女性，男性之间的激烈竞争可能会产生压迫感。人们知道，这些早年生活的压力将会对健康产生影响，可以延续数年。As reasonable as it all sounds, the hypothesis that a skewed sex ratio leads to shorter male lifespan has never been confirmed in humans. To put it to the test, Dr Christakis and his team made use of two unusual sets of demographic data. The first, known as the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, consists of a third of all those who graduated from high school in the state of Wisconsin in 1957about 10,000 people. The male-to-female ratio in each persons graduating class is known, and provides an indicator of the ratio during the sexually formative years of the studys participants. The second set of data consists of 7m white men who were enrolled in Americas Medicare programme in 1993. The researchers found the year and state in which each participants Social Security number was issued, which typically happened between his 15th and 25th birthdays. The sex ratio of his contemporaries was then calculated from state-level census data.正如所谈到那么合理一样，这个不均衡性别比例导致男性寿命较短的推测还没在人类身上证实。克里斯塔博士和他的小组用了两套人口学数据。第一组数据是著名的威斯康星州纵向研究，它由1957年在威斯康星州毕业的约10,000名毕业生组成。每个人所在毕业班的男女比例是已知的，显示了该研究参与者的性别形成那年的性别比例指标。第二套数据由1993年参与美国医保计划的七百五十万白人男性组成。研究人员发现，每个参与者的社会保险号公布的年份和州都通常在他15至25岁之间。参与者当时的性别比例则根据公布那年的州立人口普查数据计算得出。In the Wisconsin sample, Dr Christakis looked at those who had died before their 65th birthday. For the women, there was no significant relationship between their schools sex ratio and their age of death. For the men, however, a significant relationship did emerge. A percentage-point increase in the male-to-female ratio of a mans graduation class led to a percentage-point increase in his likelihood of dying before the age of 65. The Social Security data, moreover, suggest that a lack of women during mens teenage years still haunts their health decades later.在威斯康星州研究的样本中，克里斯塔博士关注那些死于65岁以前的人。对女性来说，她们就读学校的性别比例和死亡年龄没有明显关联。然而对于男性则显示出一种显著的关联。在男性毕业班里，男性对女性比例每上升一个百分点就会导致死亡可能性增高一个百分点。另外，社保号显示，男性在青少年时期若缺少女性，则会对他的健康影响数十年之久。The average white American male who was 65 in 1993 could expect to live another 15 years. Dr Christakis found, however, that those who had come of age around the most available women, however, had a life-expectancy three months longer than that of the least favoured. Three months may not seem a huge difference, but according to Dr Christakis it is comparable to the benefit an elderly person can expect from excercising or losing some surplus weight.在1993年，65岁的普通美国白人男性预计可以再活15年。然而，克里斯塔博士发现那些达到法定年龄，周围女性最多的男生比哪行最不受女性欢迎的男性多活了3个月。3个月可能并不是很大的差别，不过根据克里斯塔博士的研究，相比较老人们通过锻炼和减轻多余体重以期望延寿，3个月足以匹敌了。In an American context, these results are, perhaps, no more than an interesting curiosity: at the age of 15, boys outnumber girls by about 4% and the ratio shrinks towards equality thereafter. In China, however, it is estimated that there are now 20% more men of marriageable age than womenthe result of selective aborti