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

Revision as of 15:50, 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's the reason why women live longer than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger over time? There isn't much evidence and علامات الحمل بولد we only have some solutions. Although we know that there are behavioral, علامات الحمل بولد biological and environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men today however not as in the past, has to relate to the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small but it increased substantially in the past century.

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