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

Revision as of 10:01, 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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence is limited and we're left with only some answers. We know there are behavioral, علامات الحمل بولد biological and environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

We have learned that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. For علامات الحمل بولد 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is today.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be very small but it has risen significantly in the past.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, check that these two points also apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.