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

Revision as of 12:05, 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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason is this difference growing over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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, 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 زيوت تطويل الشعر men and women. We can see that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, 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 a widening gap: زيوت تطويل الشعر The female advantage in life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.