Difference between revisions of "Why Do Women Have Longer Lives Than Men"

Revision as of 18:15, 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 much longer than men today and why has this advantage increased over time? There isn't much evidence and we only have limited solutions. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much weight, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, is to do with the fact that a number of fundamental non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries than it is now.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living 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 growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny however, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور it has grown significantly over time.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور and Sweden.