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

Revision as of 12:59, 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 the advantage has grown as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that play an integral role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

In spite of the weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men in the present, but not previously, has to relate to the fact that certain key 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. 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal line of parity - it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, افضل شامبو وبلسم the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females 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. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, check that these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, افضل شامبو وبلسم France and the UK.