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

Revision as of 08:24, 12 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? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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 ابر التخسيس women. We can see that every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the global differences are significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is just 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 look at how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small, but it grew substantially during the last century.

You can confirm that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.