Difference between revisions of "Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 09:24, 11 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 main reason women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only limited answers. We know there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't 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. There are others that are more intricate. 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 above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two things stand تحاميل مهبلية out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once quite small however, it has grown significantly with time.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, confirm that the two points are also applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.