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

Revision as of 23:55, 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 more than men do today and why is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only incomplete solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and تحاميل مهبلية relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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. It is clear that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the global differences are significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: تحاميل مهبلية The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially in the past century.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, verify that these two points also apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.