Data from: Sex differences in adult mortality rate mediated by early-life environmental conditions

Variation in sex differences is affected by both genetic and environmental
variation, with rapid change in sex differences being more likely due to
environmental change. One case of rapid change in sex differences is human
lifespan, which has become increasingly female-biased in recent centuries.
Long-term consequences of variation in the early-life environment may, in
part, explain such variation in sex differences, but whether the
early-life environment mediates sex differences in life-history traits is
poorly understood in animals. Combining longitudinal data on 60 cohorts of
pre-industrial Finns with environmental data, we show that the early-life
environment is associated with sex differences in adult mortality and
expected lifespan. Specifically, low infant survival rates and high rye
yields (an important food source) in early-life are associated with
female-bias in adult lifespan. These results support the hypothesis that
environmental change has the potential to affect sex differences in
life-history traits in natural populations of long-lived mammals.