Difference between revisions of "Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 08:58, 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. Why do women live more than men do today and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. 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, افضل شامبو وبلسم 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, افضل شامبو وبلسم much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you can confirm that the two points apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.