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

Revision as of 01:00, 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. What's the main reason women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only partial answers. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than males, we aren't sure how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that 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, علامات الحمل بولد 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 line of parity - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists in all countries, علامات الحمل بولد global differences are significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. 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.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.