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

Revision as of 12:58, 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. What is the reason women live longer than men in the present and how has this advantage increased over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological and زيوت تطويل الشعر environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men however not as in the past, is to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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. It is clear that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage in all countries, زيوت تطويل الشعر the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 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 life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.