Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 13:42, 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? Why has this advantage gotten larger in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over males, افضل شامبو وبلسم we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present however not as in the past, is to relate to the fact that several fundamental 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 parity line , it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

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

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, check that these two points apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.