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

Revision as of 16:13, 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. What is the reason women live longer than men? Why is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each factor is.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men and not previously, 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 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. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, افضل شامبو وبلسم - glorynote.com, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: افضل شامبو وبلسم female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small but it increased substantially over the last century.

Using the option 'Change country by country' in the chart, check that these two points apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.