Living Near Heavy Traffic Increases Risk of Dementia, Study Finds (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People living near a busy road have an increased risk of dementia, according to research that adds to concerns about the impact of air pollution on human health. Roughly one in 10 cases of Alzheimer's in urban areas could be associated with living amid heavy traffic, the study estimated -- although the research stopped short of showing that exposure to exhaust fumes causes neurodegeneration. Previously, scientists have linked air pollution and traffic noise to reduced density of white matter (the brain's connective tissue) and lower cognition. A recent study suggested that magnetic nano-particles from air pollution can make their way into brain tissue. The latest study, published in The Lancet, found that those who live closest to major traffic arteries were up to 12% more likely to be diagnosed with dementia -- a small but significant increase in risk. The study, which tracked roughly 6.6 million people for more than a decade, could not determine whether pollution is directly harmful to the brain. The increased dementia risk could also be a knock-on effect of respiratory and cardiac problems caused by traffic fumes or due to other unhealthy life-style factors associated with living in built-up urban environments. The study tracked all adults aged between 20 and 85 living in Ontario, Canada from 2001 to 2012, using postcodes to determine a person's proximity to major roads. The cohort's medical records were examined to see who went on to develop dementia, Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis. Over the study period, more than 243,000 people developed dementia, 31,500 people developed Parkinson's disease and 9,250 people developed multiple sclerosis. The scientists found no link between living near a road and Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis, but dementia was slightly more common in people living close to busy roads and the risk dropped off gradually in less built-up areas. Those living within 50 meters of a busy road had a 7% higher risk in developing dementia, the risk was 4% higher risk at 50-100 meters, 2% higher risk at 101-200 meters and there was no increase in risk in those living more than 200 meters away. Those who lived in a major city, within 50 meters of a major road and who did not move house for the duration of the study had the highest risk at 12%.

Comments

I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[Mr D from 63]

You'd have to be crazy to live there.

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

Heavy traffic in cities. This explains why crowded cities are liberal.

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[arglebargle_xiv]

As with almost all mainstream reporting of a medical result, they've mischaracterised the findings. What the study says is that breathing polluted air is a bad thing. One source of pollution is heavy traffic. Other sources of pollution are... well, just about anything related to commerce and industry, Also, pollution causes a lot more than dementia, Parkinson's and MS. However, if it were to be reported as "pollution is bad for you", it wouldn't make the mainstream media.

As an aside, the study is pretty well done, a cohort study of several million people over a ten-year period, nothing to fault there. It's the way it's being reported in the media that's the problem.

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[ShanghaiBill]

Or maybe the causation is reversed. Dealing with dementia puts enormous financial strain on families. So they don't have much money for rent, and have to live next to the freeway.

Re: I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[WarJolt]

You can't prove that. All we know for sure is that demented people live close to highways.

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[ShanghaiBill]

It is a tracking study that starts with their location, then sees who later gets diagnosed with diseases

Getting dementia isn't like catching a cold, where one day you are fine, and the next day you got it. Retrospective research has found differences even 30 or 40 years earlier, between people that would later get full Alzheimers and those who never did. It is possible that people who would later be diagnosed with dementia had lower household incomes decades earlier.

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[Gavagai80]

Actually it's much more expensive to live in a high-traffic polluted downtown area of a major city than it is to live anywhere else.

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[nospam007]

"You'd have to be crazy to live there."

Demented, actually. That's why the study is flawed, they were already demented before moving there.

Re: I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[BarbaraHudson]

You can't prove that. All we know for sure is that demented people live close to highways.

Or under them. Where you live is dictated mostly by economics. You might need to live hear your job, or specific schools for your kids, or whatever. This is a great example of how correlation is not causation, and even the correlation may be an artifact.

It's like the reverse correlation between male income and the size of women's breasts they find attractive - the more a guy makes, the smaller the boobies he prefers. It's also how you spot the nouveau riche beer-store lottery winner - his new girlfriend has the biggest breasts money can buy. Does his preference change over time? Who knows - they always end up broke again too quickly to get enough data. :-)

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[BarbaraHudson]

Smog tends to accumulate around city cores, especially at ground level, because of the buildings that slow down the breezes that would tend to disperse it in open areas around highways. The burbs aren't as bad because the buildings are not as tall, and building density is not as high - plus there's these amazing things called lawns and trees.

Re:I wouldn't live near heavy traffic

[mysticgoat]

If you do a longitudinal study on a thousand people living in an adverse environment, you need to account for the high likelihood that fewer of those with pre-dementia conditions will relocate to better neighborhoods during the study than those with normal mentation. It would be exceedingly hard to adjust a study of this kind to account for this differential out-migration.

In other words, those who have pre-dementia conditions are more likely to remain in an unhealthy environment than the average person. Persons with below average coping skills face higher barriers to relocating. Also, dementia, with its decreased ability to assess one's environment, increases a person's tolerance of negative environmental conditions. So it is also not only more difficult to move away, there is less of a perceived need to do so.

There is a strong "correlation does not imply causation" factor with regard to this study. It has value in strongly suggesting that if you want to find a neighborhood with a higher than average population of demented residents, you should look for places with lots of noise pollution, bad odors, relatively low tax bases, and similar markers of marginal living conditions. But I think we pretty much knew that already.

That's one of the nice things about being well off

[rsilvergun]

being able to live away from all the pollution. Man I wish we could convince folks to give up their damn cars and switch to public transport. Not a chance though as long as cars get you laid.

obvious pun

[shentino]

Well I've heard of driving people crazy but this is ridiculous.

I used to live by one

[Snotnose]

25 years ago, looking for a house for the fiance and I. Ended up buying a house by I-5 on the knowledge Caltrans was going to build a wall between my backyard and the freeway. They did. They took months to do it. Not kidding. Survey team came in, did their thing, then 2-3 months of nothing. Demo team came in to get rid of the existing brick wall, 3 days work, 3 months nothing. Peeps came in to dig holes, suckers were about 8 feet deep. I was worried my cat would fall in one so I had to buy 4-5 plywood sheets to put over the holes. Few months later people actually came in to build the wall. They dumped some iron things into the pool and didn't fish them out, left stains on my pool bottom. Within a year the paint covering started to blister. And the noise. Jeez, the noise.

Got divorced, moved to a quieter neighborhood. Whenever I visited the ex (yeah, she got the house) I couldn't believe the noise in the back yard. You couldn't carry a conversation at normal volume levels.

So, when the real estate dude and anyone else says "You'll get used to it", run. Run like hell. You'll get used to dealing with it, but you won't get used to it.

Ah yes, almost forgot. The "dust". The "dust" wasn't normal dust I've dealt with everywhere else I've lived. This "dust" was black soot-like nasty stuff.I'm guessing it was a combination of tire particles and brake particles, with a scattering of diesel stuff. Whatever, whenever I dusted I didn't get a light gray on my rag, I got a dark black.

Moral of the story? don't buy a house next to a freeway or, corollary, by a busy street.

Re:I used to live by one

[Mashiki]

Moral of the story? don't buy a house next to a freeway or, corollary, by a busy street.

Good advice, but then again if you've lived near such all your life? You'll probably miss the sounds/noise. I live within 300m of the 401(busiest highway in north america), the noise doesn't bother me. When I go traveling, and have to rent motels/hotel/etc rooms, I try to aim for places that are within the same distance of the nearest big highway. I find it completely relaxing, same with when I was a kid. Round that out that I've either lived right on, or within 250m of one of the busiest rail lines in Ontario(CN main trunk) all my life as well? Even those 5min long, chugging diesels? You learn to ignore it, or wonder why you don't hear it. Odd thing is, when I was growing up you could always tell there was warmer weather coming, because the sound would be much clearer(winds from the south). It's kinda stuck with me over the last 30 years.

The dust though? Almost 100% in the last 20 years from tires or diesel particulate. Brakes have been semi-metalic or made from ceramics for over a decade as well. It actually used to be worse when brakes were metallic(asbestos), I was doing my apprenticeship when they were just about to phase out to semi. But if you think that dust is bad? You've never lived near an open pit mine, that's dust. Lived near a few in my day, one near Beachville, Ontario(used to be the largest open pit lime mine in the world). And near the open pit coal mines in Grande Cache, Alberta. The amount of dust you'd see in most places in a month? Easily a day, sometimes half a day if the wind was blowing right.

Re:I used to live by one

[spaceman375]

Try a sound generator. You can get white, brown, & pink noise; static, running water, and rain. Really, get yourself away from all that particulate stuff.

Re:I used to live by one

[drinkypoo]

Ah yes, almost forgot. The "dust". The "dust" wasn't normal dust I've dealt with everywhere else I've lived. This "dust" was black soot-like nasty stuff.I'm guessing it was a combination of tire particles and brake particles, with a scattering of diesel stuff.

Tire particles, brake particles, road particles, oil, diesel soot, just as much gasoline soot and it is actually more harmful than diesel soot. Garbage, cigarette smoke, burning oil smoke, glycol coolant.

It would be shocking if it weren't horrendously toxic.

Re:I used to live by one

[Ichijo]

Also don't live in a rural area because you are more likely to die violently there than in a city.

Re:I used to live by one

[Mashiki]

Really, get yourself away from all that particulate stuff.

The radon is likely going to do me more damage then the particulates. This is true of most people in Canada.

Re:I used to live by one

[RespekMyAthorati]

You sound demented.

Re:I used to live by one

[Mashiki]

$20 says you leave the city, smell the smells of the country(shit, piss and rot), and go EWWW it stinks.

Re:This sounds familiar

[dgatwood]

The study corrected for differences in income.

That said, sleep disruption caused by traffic noise is, IMO, far more likely to be the cause of the increase in dementia than air pollution.

correlation, causation, peh

[Black Parrot]

Maybe having dementia causes more people to drive past where you live.

N 6.6M

[SETY]

The study tracked 6.6 million people. This is awesome. These are the type of studies we need, big data studies. Everyone is always worried about medical records, but when you have a single payer system there is less of a worry about that. Imagine what else they can discover from that dataset!

Re:N 6.6M

[blindseer]

I'm old enough to remember when it was common for people to think that any government that had this much information on this many people was considered a tyranny. I'm not sure what changed but I don't like it.

Re:N 6.6M

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Conservative Stephen Harper tried to kill of the compulsory census,

People continue to perpetuate this lie for some reason.

In Canada, there is the regular census, which has always been there and it is mandatory under the law to respond. The requirement to have a census is in the Constitution. This was unchanged under Prime Minister Harper.

BUT, there is an additional so-called "long-form" census that would be sent randomly to 20% of the population.

The long-form census (as you might guess by the name) is long and contains many intrusive questions that many people are uncomfortable answering. If you were selected for the long-form census, you were required by law to fill it out.

And Statistics Canada doesn't have the best record when it comes to data security. And the Canadian govt has a history of using data it collects for one reason to abuse its citizens. (such as this case where 54 bureaucrats illegally accessed the medical files of a veteran who was criticizing the govt: http://www.theglobeandmail.com... and of course the bureaucrats got less than a slap on the wrist)

Under Harper, the long-form became voluntary. That's all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:N 6.6M

[hyades1]

As you know (or should know, if you're going to comment on this), a voluntary long form census is useless for data purposes because it is non-random.

Please quit being deceptive.

Re:N 6.6M

[hyades1]

As I said earlier (and got modded down by one of the right wing trolls who are attempting to take over this site), this is why Conservative Stephen Harper tried to kill of the compulsory census, and shut down climate monitoring in Canada's north...and destroyed as much data as possible.

The only way to really compromise a study with access to that kind of "big data" is to put a hole in the middle of the data set where no information was collected, or where it was collected in a manner that is rendered worthless.

By making the long form census voluntary, Harper ensured that the data collection was essentially non-random, and therefore worthless in the context of data collected before and after.

Re:N 6.6M

[BarbaraHudson]

Self-selected study populations only tell you about people who choose to fill in forms. Do you really believe them to be representative of the population in general?

must be the lead

[0xdeaddead]

Remember when gasoline had lead?

Re:must be the lead

[Strider-]

So local cathedral in Vancouver just underwent a major restoration where they replaced the roof. The church is located on one of the busiest intersection sin the city. As they did their work, and removed the old roof, they ran into the unanticipated problem of significant amounts of lead dust filtering down into the rest of the building. It was then that it dawned on them that the church had been sitting on the busiest intersection in the city for 100 years, and for a significant portion of those, vehicles had used leaded gasoline. The remediation of the lead added about 25% to the cost of the renovation.

Re:must be the lead

[RuffMasterD]

It's possible. Lead is a neurotoxin which crosses the blood-brain barrier with ease. According to Wikipedia, "Lead causes loss of neurons' myelin sheaths, reduces numbers of neurons, interferes with neurotransmission, and decreases neuronal growth" (references a medical textbook), and "Long-term exposure of adults can result in decreased performance in some tests that measure functions of the nervous system" (references the EPA website). Nasty stuff.

Canada severely limited the use of leaded gasoline since 1990 though, while this study looked at data from 2001 to 2012. So either this is a latent effect from before leaded gasoline was limited, which is possible given how slowly dementia develops, or something else is going on. Either way, Lancet has a good reputation, so the methodology in this study is probably solid.

As others have pointed out, poverty could be a factor too. People prefer living further away from highways if they can afford to. Therefore property prices tend to be lower close to highways, which makes these places more affordable for poorer people. That confounds the issue with all sorts of other lifestyle factors. Do poor people eat less fresh fruit and vegetables? Do poor people exercise less? Do poor people smoke more cigarettes or drink more alcohol? Are there other factors we aren't even aware of?

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[HornWumpus]

What's the old truism: 'A Geo Metro is far greener than a Prius, but it won't get you laid.'

I'd add a suggestion for the parents of teenage boys: Get them a metro and hide a diaper full of newborn shit in some hidden space in the interior. You won't be having grandchildren ahead of schedule.

Male birth control car. Won't work for girls.

No, it's reflexive - myself

[raymorris]

"I was looking for a house for me"?
No, "I was looking for a house for myself." It's reflexive.
Therefore "I was looking for a house for my fiance and myself."

An easy way to know: I=he, him=me, himself=myself

[raymorris]

Ps, if grammar terms like subject, object, and indirect object don't come natural to you, here's one way to distinguish I, me, and myself. Replace them with he, him, and himself. Like so:

Bob found a house for himself. Sounds fine.
Bob found a house for he. Doesn't sound right.
Bob found a house for him. Still not right, if "him" means Bob.

Himself is analogous to myself, so myself is correct.

Causation?

[aviators99]

It seems to me that they did not control for the physicians who made the diagnoses (they got the diagnosis data from public record). There aren't that many urban areas in Canada. Perhaps doctors in these urban areas have a tendency to diagnose dementia. Or perhaps the doctors are just better in urban areas. Did I miss something?

How do they know it's pollution?

[djinn6]

All the article says is:

In this large population-based cohort, living close to heavy traffic was associated with a higher incidence of dementia, but not with Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis.

The road noise early in the morning is really bad for sleep, which we know has a huge effect on brain function. How do we know that's not the main cause? Car pollution likes to stick around and pollute the entire city, so even if you live far away, you'd still be hit with some pollution.

The other article they mentioned tested children's working memory and how classroom pollution affects it. None of the children had dementia, which is what this study measured.

There aren't that many urban areas in Canada

[Bruce66423]

You're joking aren't you? Most of the Canadian population lives in big cities - Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver all have over 2 million people in their metropolitan areas.

Re:There aren't that many urban areas in Canada

[aviators99]

Right. That's 3. I didn't say they didn't have large populations.

Netcraft confirms it

[melted]

People who live in cities are demented

Pollutants or stress?

[Applehu Akbar]

The study doesn't seem to separate these two factors. We live near a busy intersection and used to notice traffic noise at night, when we sleep with the windows open. Several years ago the signal at the intersection was replaced by a roundabout. Suddenly it was really quiet at night, since most traffic just glides through. But by day when the traffic is heavy with tourists who don't get roundabout driving, there can be a lot of honking. When we're out on the paio at a time like this, road rage is a great form of rural theater.

I've been wondering how this will change society

[rsilvergun]

once those folks with mild lead poisoning start to die off. Having a significant part of your population with varying degrees of brain damage can't be a good thing...

Silicon Valley

[BrendaEM]

Here in Silicon Valley, there is road noise everywhere. During the growth since the 1970s, it appears that they didn't or couldn't expand the highway system enough to suit the needs, and now the cities are riddled with expressways and 45-50 mile roads near their house.

It isn't so in New England. You have highways and more quiet cities. There is a distinction. In Connecticut, the closest thing you have to an expressway is the Berlin Turnpike. If you live in CT, you would be amazed to learn that they put the equal to a turnpike right through everyone's neighborhood.

It doesn't make sense: Here in Campbell, there's a highway that runs north-south, and there's also an expressway that does as well--just a few blocks away.

The cars from the expressway are loud enough to hear with the windows closed this morning, and it's almost a full block away. The only time it's quiet is on the weekend, sometimes.

Telecommuting would seem an answer. It would allow us to not have to build so many office buildings as well.

Lead

[Anonymous Coward]

People who are old enough to any form of dementia, lived during the time when lead was in the gas

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[BarbaraHudson]

Do Priuses get you laid?

Ask any Prius owner. They'll tell you yes. That's how you know they're lying sacks of sh*t. :-) Or look in their driveway - their second vehicle is an SUV or a king cab pickup.

Re: This sounds familiar

[BarbaraHudson]

"Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution and Cognitive Decline in Older Women" - apparently only in women, or maybe all the old men wandered away and couldn't be found. They can be identified by having their pants pulled up to their armpits and hitting on women even though they can't remember why.

Re:Suck it in, it's not just dementia you're breat

[BarbaraHudson]

Silicon Valley folks are in for some nasty surprises once their grey hairs start coming in.

They won't care - they didn't care before dementia set in, why should they after? They'll just want to figure out how to leverage their own dementia into another unicorn IPO. Nothing - NOTHING - else matters as much.

Re:Trump

[BarbaraHudson]

So does Clinton. She even admitted to multiple, months-long memory loses where she didn't really understand what was going on around her. And the whole world got to see how out of touch with reality she was on election night when she was so shocked at losing that she couldn't bring herself to thank her workers, even though polls had said it would be close.

It's a crazy world - they're both equally unqualified, but hey, blame the Russians. 2018 will be time to blame China and North Korea again. And the Muslims.

This explains ...

[PPH]

... all the crazy people living underneath I-5 in Seattle.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[HornWumpus]

Any brand spanking new car can contribute to getting you laid. Just like any other outward display of wealth (or willingness to take on debt). Priuses work particularly well with the whole 'virtue signalling' crowd. Display of wealth, plus hippie cred. If the girl you are after has armpit hair (in America) a Prius is your best bet.

It's a perverse economic incentive. Most people with brand new cars are blowing their peckers off financially to put on a mating display.

The sensible alternative is a very nice classic car (NOT a 'classic' Geo Metro). Which will do the same and appreciate in value, but can be very difficult to get loans for. Doesn't work on the same group of women though. Guys need to culturally profile displays of wealth for best effectiveness.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[BarbaraHudson]

Most women won't make a decision as to whether to sleep with you based on the car you drive. This is especially true now that among millennials, women are the majority of car buyers, and that there are now more women drivers than men.

And of course post-millennials no longer see cars as all that big a deal either. A guy trying to get laid by using a car as a prop is more likely to have success if he's gay and trying to pick up a bro. Times have changed, and are continuing to change. Self-driving cars are going to make it less likely for people to bother with the expense of owning a car - and the concomitant attachment to it.

The whole "cars as chick magnets" is more a male fantasy today than a reality. I don't care what a guy drives, it doesn't magically have any sort of "halo effect" on my opinion of him. It would actually have a negative effect if it's obvious he sees his car as a shortcut into my panties.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[Toonol]

I think that comment is mostly wish fulfillment. Display of wealth is the surest, simplest way for a man to get laid, and that hasn't changed in five thousand years. Neither Millennials nor Post-Millennials are a new species. The women are pretty much the same as women always have been, and the men are pretty much the same as men always have been.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[BarbaraHudson]

And I think your statement is in itself wish fulfillment. And given that you're probably a man, it's obvious why you see things the way you do.

But let's get to the current generation, since that's what we're talking about. Displays of wealth don't work when women are no longer subservient to men in terms of pay. There are plenty of women who make more than men - obviously they didn't choose the guy because he has money, since he has less in those cases. And it's becoming more frequent as well-paying blue-collar jobs go bye-bye and women graduate at higher rates than men.

Both my daughters make more than the guys they went out with, because they both made more than the average for their age group, and compared to the general population at large.

Re:I've been wondering how this will change societ

[Lehk228]

crime and other degenerate behavior goes down.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[syntotic]

Wrong. Living near to high density traffic MEANS you are exposed to many more people than when you live in secluded neighborhoods. It has nothing to do with air pollution or car usage or even pavement usage, but with criminality, terrorism, guerrilla, sects, gangs, mafias, burglars, intruders, vagrants... you name it, but PEOPLE. You may not be aware, but you might have been poisoned many more times than you could imagine, particularly if you have never imagined the chance of people going into your place for motives other than theft or rape. It also means any study has to discount the increased probability of demented people choosing, or being forced to, live in high density areas because in more exclusive neighborhoods they are more conspicuous and driven away. But I do think there is a real explaining factor, IF they are taking the classical definition or expression of dementia as compulsive long monologues and soliloquies: the increased level of noise will have a higher chance of producing aural delusions and even speech perturbations (through conditioned stimulus and training), opening a road at schizophrenia (hearing voices), because the brain will try to make sense of the noise in diverse ways, and self talking is an adaptation way to enhance one owns attention in the presence of... noise. Even subliminal noise would produce the effect! We have to be very aware, there are interests to convince people modern life is no good at all and we ALL should go back to the age where those interests would have a real advantage over us modern types...

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[HornWumpus]

As I posted: 'Guys need to culturally profile displays of wealth for best effectiveness.'

The things in your post beyond that, are wishful thinking.

Women earn less than men but spend much more. Wealth is obviously still a concern to them.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[BarbaraHudson]

More women are attending universities than men. That trend has been going on for a while - since the late '70s (okay, it's more than "a while" - it's a generation or so). Women are also more likely to graduate. Even if we don't look specifically at the US, the same holds true globally (though not quite as much).

The man buying a "penis extender" muscle car or truck isn't going to impress the woman with her Kia Soul. She's picked what she likes, plus she's saved money on both the original purchase and day-to-day expenses. So they guy continually pays a financial penalty for peacocking, for nothing. All he's doing is impressing people with the same values - his bros.

Times have changed. Ever driven a 5-ton truck from the 40's or 50's? Truck-driver then was a man's job because there was no power steering on most trucks. No electric tailgate lifts or palette jiggers. Clutches were DAMN heavy on the leg. So were brakes.

Now? You can't work up a sweat if you try. Power everything, AC in both the truck and at the warehouse and the client, pretty much everything is palettized, shrink-wrapped with 1000' rolls of wrap everywhere so you don't have to worry about loose boxes falling off the palettes, physical strength means pretty much nothing.

At a cost of $50,000 per tire, tire wear on a set of 6 tires on a 400-ton truck is important, and women have been found to cause less tire wear in a mine per tonne hauled then men. Ditto for fuel economy and downtime due to breakage. If they weren't being automated out of jobs, those ultra truck driver jobs would be mostly women today.

This doesn't mean women are better drivers overall - just that, for those who drive such trucks, they are. Things change.

As for pay inequity, that will also change with time.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[HornWumpus]

Women still earn less than men, but statistically spend about 70% of American income. They also control more wealth than men.

Somehow, women still consistently get money from men. If you think women aren't looking for provider potential when dating, you are just nuts, but we all already knew that.

Re:That's one of the nice things about being well

[BarbaraHudson]

Of course women spend more of the family income. When's the last time the guy did the groceries, or took the kids shopping for school supplies or clothes, doctor's visits, handled payments to daycare, school fees, utilities, etc?

Women don't want lazy bums who they're going to have to support in addition to the children, if any. The guy should be able to pull his weight. But I don't hear you claiming that men are the opposite - that a guy doesn't give a damn what a woman brings to the table.