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

Revision as of 12:28, 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's the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And how is this difference growing as time passes? There is only limited evidence and تحاميل مهبلية the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables which all play a part in women who live longer than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men today however not as in the past, is to be due to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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 women. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

This chart shows that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.