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

Revision as of 12:57, 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? Why has this advantage gotten larger in the past? The evidence is limited and we only have incomplete answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn't because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart shows that, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you are able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.