Difference between revisions of "Why Women Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 23:27, 7 January 2022

Everywhere in the world women live longer than men - but this was not always the case. The available data from rich countries shows that women didn't live longer than men in the 19th century. Why do women live so longer than men in the present, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

Independently of the exact amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men but not previously, has to be due to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, افضل شامبو وبلسم like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. For example, there is evidence that in rich countries the female advantage increased in part because infectious diseases used to affect women disproportionately a century ago, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for survivors, ended up raising women's longevity disproportionately.

Everywhere in the world women tend to live longer than men
The first chart below shows life expectancy at birth for men and women. We can see that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once very small It has significantly increased with time.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, check that these two points are also applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.