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

Revision as of 17:22, 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 in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that certain fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. 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 men and women. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists in all countries, تحاميل مهبلية global differences are significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny but it has risen significantly over time.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.