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

Revision as of 17:47, 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 does this benefit increase as time passes? There isn't much evidence and صبغ الشعر بالاسود (Visit Home Page) we only have some answers. We know there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

We have learned that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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 men and women. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend: Men and 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.

The second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.