Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 02:01, 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 reason women live longer than men? And how is this difference growing over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men and not in the past, has to relate to the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 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 be quite small, افضل شامبو وبلسم but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

You can confirm that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.