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

Revision as of 14:34, 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. What makes women live longer than men in the present and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each factor is.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men however not as in the past, has to do with the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century 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 tiny however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.