New research has found that women in the United States are more likely to die from traffic accidents, suicide, heart attacks and strokes than men, a finding that is a stark contrast to previous findings that have shown the gender gap is closing.
A report published in the American Journal of Public Health by researchers at the University of Michigan and the University at Buffalo found that between 2011 and 2016, the proportion of women in America who died from motor vehicle crashes and the proportion who died by suicide rose by nearly 2 percent in a decade.
And the number of women who died of heart attacks rose by 7 percent, the researchers wrote.
More:The researchers also found that the number who died in workplace accidents and those who died as a result of suicide jumped by 6 percent.
The findings are a stark reminder of the enormous disparity in the ways women are treated in the workforce, and the fact that there is still significant work to be done to close the gender pay gap.
“While we have made progress in closing the gender wage gap, it remains a stark and troubling fact that women are more than four times as likely as men to die in traffic accidents and suicides,” said study lead author Elizabeth L. Lipscomb, a professor of psychology at the university.
“We know that women experience more physical injuries than men; we know that male drivers have been found to cause more fatal crashes; and we know they are less likely to get sick and die from cancer and heart disease.
So these are all fairly obvious facts that need to be known.”
The findings highlight the need for employers to pay attention to how gender affects employee performance, she said.
Women in the workplace are often less likely than men to get health insurance, are less safe in the car and are less equipped to manage chronic illnesses and injuries, said Lipscom.
The authors found that men were twice as likely to commit suicide, and they were more likely than women to be involved in workplace suicides.
The study found that among those who committed suicide, a higher proportion of male victims were female.
“It’s a huge gender gap,” Lipscomp said.
“It’s not just the gender-based disparities.
It’s that men are at greater risk of suicide and of dying from traffic injuries than women are.”
Lipscomb said she hopes to have the report published this fall.