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

Revision as of 14:43, 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? And why the advantage has grown in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today but not in the past, is to do with the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, ابر التخسيس 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 you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, ابر التخسيس, click here for more, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially in the past.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.