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

Revision as of 18:54, 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? Why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than males, صبغ الشعر بالاسود we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present however not as in the past, has to be due to the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. For صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially during the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country' on the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.