Difference between revisions of "Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 07:07, 8 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. What's the reason why women live longer than men? And how has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence is limited and we have only some solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

We have learned that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, صبغ الشعر بالاسود like the fact that men smoke more often. Other are more complicated. 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, صبغ الشعر بالاسود although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women living in America are living longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically during the last century.

You can verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.