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

Revision as of 13:50, 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 makes women live more than men do today and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? The evidence is limited and we're left with only some answers. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of 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. 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for صبغ الشعر بالاسود women exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, صبغ الشعر بالاسود you can check that these two points are also applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.