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

Revision as of 15:13, 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. Why do women live so longer than men and how have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence is limited and we're left with only some solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men do today but not previously, has to be due to the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. 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 كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام men and women. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can expect to live longer than her older brother.

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

Using the option 'Change country by country' in the chart, you are able to verify that these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.