--- KJ <kjinkhoo at gmail.com> wrote: The sharp post 1990 rise could not be explained by that. And indeed it wasn't -- as should be clear from the age-specific mortalities and the leading causes of death. I think the US CDC released a number of reports on this matter and, as I recall, it told a sorry tale -- heightened mortality from diphteria and pneumonia, violence and suicides, strokes, and, yes, heart disease and alcohol poisoning.
---
Whatever accounts for the drop has to explain why it affected men and not women.
Infectious diseases -- no, except insofar as men are more likely to be incarcerated and/or use IV drugs.
Violence and suicide -- yes, but not to that extent. Russia's not a killing field. Moscow's murder rate is half New York's (going by official states circa 2000).
Heart attacks -- yes, but what causes them? Why are men dying young of heart attacks and women not?
Alcohol poisoning -- I've mentioned this, and yes. Russian women are much less likely than men to drink to excess and especially to binge drink.
The big, obvious differences are behavioral patterns. Men often drink a lot*, and women don't. This especially applies to binge drinking, the so-called "zapoi," when you drink compulsively for several days straight.** Men smoke at about 4 times the rate women do. And moreover IT IS MUCH EASIER TO GET TO ALCOHOL NOWADAYS THAN IN THE SOVIET ERA, and the alcohol is often "compromised," if you will, if you are buying at the bottom price range, which is what chronic alcoholics do.
* I don't mean to say that a majority of men do this, but a large minority do.
** This is opposed to a "pyanka," which is just a drinking party. Maybe it's in the genes, or maybe the peasant custom of heavy drinking for days in a row during festival periods (and more or less sobriety throughout the rest of the year) has become transmuted into an urban practice of binge drinking, I dunno.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs