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

Revision as of 09:53, 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 is the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide partial solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of how much weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men do today and not previously, is to relate to the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brother.

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, علامات الحمل بولد the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly in the past.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.