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

Revision as of 15:50, 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 have a longer life span than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase as time passes? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have some solutions. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two areas stand زيوت تطويل الشعر out.

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

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny It has significantly increased over time.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.