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

Revision as of 17:57, 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 are more likely to live longer than men? And how has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? 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 every country is above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was very small It has significantly increased with time.

It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.