Why Men Take More Risks
The nature, nurture, and evolution of sex differences in risk-taking
Why are men so much more likely than women to die doing something spectacularly unwise? Why are they overrepresented among extreme sports enthusiasts, workers in dangerous occupations, and people whose last thought is, “Yeah, this seems like a good idea”?
Across cultures, throughout history, and in many other species, males are consistently more willing than females to roll the dice. In this excerpt from my book A Billion Years of Sex Differences, I explore what the research says about sex differences in risk-taking and where they come from. Among other things, we’ll discuss:
How we know that sex differences in risk-taking aren’t just a mirage - and aren’t just a product of culture
Why men dominate both the Darwin Awards and the Carnegie Hero Awards
Why natural selection sometimes favors traits that reliably get people killed
Why sex differences in risk-taking explode after puberty
What chimpanzees can teach us about human risk-taking
You can find the full collection of excerpts here, or pick up a copy of A Billion Years of Sex Differences here.
Reckless Abandon
Being male is now the single largest demographic risk factor for early mortality in developed countries.
-Daniel Kruger and Randy Nesse (2004), p.66
The fact that men engage in more aggression than women – and more of a range of antisocial behaviours – stems in part from another important sex difference: the sex difference in the tendency to take risks. As most people are all-too aware, boys and men are bigger risk-takers than girls and women. This sex difference helps explain various stubborn facts. It helps explain why boy toddlers are more likely than girl toddlers to end up in the emergency room; why men are over-represented on the Wikipedia page of inventors killed by their own inventions; and why more men than women participate in extreme sports – that is, sports extremely likely to kill you, such as base jumping, hang-gliding, and motor racing. It helps explain why men do most of the riskiest jobs in the world – including construction worker, fisherman, logger, taxi driver, and truck driver – and why more than 90% of workplace fatalities are men. And it helps explain why men are more likely than women to accept stupid dares, gamble away their life savings, invest in cryptocurrencies, die while taking extreme selfies, and hit send on an email without reading it through first.
It’s quite a résumé . . . and we’re only just getting started! Men are more likely than women to get into car accidents, even when you statistically control for the fact that men drive more. This isn’t because men are less skilled at handling a vehicle; it’s because they more often drive too fast, tailgate, and drive drunk. At the same time, despite their Russian roulette driving habits, men less often wear seatbelts. Not only are men more likely to crash a car, they’re more likely to get hit by a car while crossing the road. This isn’t because motorists try to run men down; it’s because men are more likely to try to cross when it’s unsafe. Yep, scientists have sat by the side of the road tabulating men’s and women’s road-crossing habits, and that’s what they’ve observed. And not only are men more likely to be struck by cars, they’re more likely to be struck by lightning. This isn’t because God hates men; it’s because men are more likely to work outdoors and less likely to think ‘Hmmm, there’s a storm coming; maybe I should go inside.’
Every year, the British Medical Journal publishes a light-hearted Christmas edition. The 2014 offering included an article testing the hypothesis that men engage in more ‘idiotic risk-taking’. To that end, the authors looked at the demographic makeup of Darwin Award recipients. Darwin Awards are bestowed on individuals whose actions ensure ‘the long-term survival of the species, by selectively allowing one less idiot to survive’. Notable recipients include the would-be aviator who strapped helium balloons to a lawn chair then drifted over Los Angeles for 14 hours before being rescued, and the terrorist who put insufficient postage on a letter bomb, then unthinkingly opened it when the parcel was returned to his door. Crunching the numbers, the researchers found that 88% of Darwin Award winners were men, consistent with their ‘male idiot theory’.
To be fair, although men take more idiotic risks, they also take more heroic ones. More than 90% of Carnegie Hero Awards go to men, to give just one example. Still, whether idiotic, heroic, or a mixture of both, the root cause of the sex difference is the same: Men are more tolerant of risks.