One of the earliest ideas was that men drive themselves to the grave with too much work. In a mine or behind a plow, they exhaust themselves with excessive loads and get injured, which make themselves felt with serious illnesses at an older age. However, if this were really the case, the difference in life expectancy of both sexes should have narrowed when most women and men began working in offices.

The fact that men neglect their health more than women also remains a weak argument. Factors such as smoking, alcoholism and overeating partly explain why the size of the gender difference in life expectancy varies so markedly between countries.

Ukrainian men, for example, die 13 years earlier than Ukrainian women, in part because they abuse alcohol and smoke much more than their compatriots.