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

Revision as of 13:13, 10 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 much longer than men today and how have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide partial answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other are more complicated. For example, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.