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

Revision as of 11:44, 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 reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only partial solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men but not in the past, has to relate to the fact that several fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from any country can expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

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

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly over time.

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