Why won’t men get hearing aids? Actually, both genders resist dealing with their age-related hearing declines. There’s an excellent article about hearing aids in general.

Some of the following information comes from it, but we have pursued a lot of sources, including some scholarly ones. Large numbers of older people have hearing loss (one source says 55 percent of those over 70), but most of them don’t deal with it (a different source says that only 14 percent of the 27 million over 50 with impaired hearing use a hearing aid). Some of the reasons for this include: (1) denial that they have a problem, (2) resistance to change, (3) the stigma of old age, (4) vanity, and (5) cost (hearing aids are expensive, and most are not paid for by medical insurance). But men and women deal with hearing decline differently: men consider a sign of weakness, while women worry that it makes them appear old.

Actually, some of the reasons that men die younger than women are the same that cause them to be deafer sooner. More men than women are exposed to loud noises because of military service (though women are now welcomed into combat roles (be careful what you wish for, ladies!), noisy occupations such as construction, and similar occupations. One can argue that both genders listen to too-loud music, but males appear to do it longer and louder, perhaps because they act macho.

Poor hearing in itself causes a lower quality of life because one is not fully informed or entertained, and does not participate fully in social situations. But the problem does not stop there. It worsens relationships with acquaintances and loved ones, leads to dementia, and can even cause accidents (especially falls)