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

Revision as of 12:38, 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 have a longer life span than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that play an integral role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men do today but not previously, is to do with the fact that certain 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 others 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women used to be smaller
Let's examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام women living in America are living longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially during the last century.

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