Studies have shown that girls are reaching puberty younger and younger, to the point that Kotex now has a line of maxi pads intended for 8-year-olds. There hasn’t been as much discussion of when boys start puberty, perhaps because it doesn’t require an awkward trip to buy new undergarments, and is thus less noticeable to adults. However, a new study says that like girls, they’re maturing earlier than ever before.
Joshua Goldstein, director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, studied mortality data and found that since the mid-1700s, the age of sexual maturity has been decreasing by about 2.5 months per decade. Goldstein says he can tell when boys went through puberty due to the “accident hump.” When testosterone production peaks in boys, they start partaking in more risky behavior and their probability of dying shoots up. Goldstein found that this spike in the death rate of young males has shifted about two years earlier per century.
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