Too Many Men, Too Short Lives: The Effect of the Male-Biased Sex Ratio on Mortality

Simon Chang, Kamhon Kan () and Xiaobo Zhang

No 13162, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Using a natural experiment in Taiwan, this paper shows that exposure to male-biased sex ratios at the marriageable ages is associated with a greater likelihood of death in later life. Half a million soldiers from Mainland China who retreated to Taiwan after a civil war in the late 1940s were subject to a marriage ban. When the ban was lifted in 1959, the great influx of the soldiers into the marriage market suddenly tipped the balance in favor of women. We have found that men subject to this massive marriage market squeeze exhibited higher mortality rates at age 50–64. Surprisingly, the deadly effect, albeit of a much smaller magnitude, is also found among women. We show that this is likely driven by the widowhood effect—women's mortality rate increased after their husbands' deaths.

Keywords: marriage market; mortality; sex ratio; widowhood effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2020-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Journal of Human Resources, 2024, 59 (2), 604-626

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp13162.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Too Many Men, Too-Short Lives: The Effect of the Male-Biased Sex Ratio on Mortality (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13162

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().