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

Revision as of 17:11, 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 makes women live more than men do today, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We have learned that women live longer than men, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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. It is clear that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.