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

Revision as of 00:46, 13 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. Why do women live longer than men and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men but not previously, is to be due to the fact that several fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. 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, ابر التخسيس 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 all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brothers.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, ابر التخسيس check that these two points are applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.