Data were collected, refined, and analyzed on 654 men and 210 women in Lewis Terman’s “gifted children” longitudinal study to examine links between masculinity and mortality. Masculinity measures included gender diagnosticity (GD) scores, measuring the male-or female-typicality of occupational preferences in 1940 and masculinity-femininity (M-F) scores from the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB). Hazard analyses showed GD was significantly related to mortality for both men and women (interquartile relative hazard 1.25 for men and 1.62 for women), with masculine women and masculine men more likely to die at any given age. SVIB M-F was similarly related to mortality for both men and women (respective interquartile relative hazards = 1.26 and 1.36). The effects remained significant after controlling for certain health behaviors and Big Five traits.
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