Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 04:50, 9 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 longer than men and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide some solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure what the contribution of each factor is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, ابر التخسيس regardless of weight. However, ابر التخسيس this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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 diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be quite small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.