Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 20:59, 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 longer than men and why has this advantage increased over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only incomplete answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence of each factor is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men today and not in the past, is to be due to the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

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

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was very small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور (glorynote.com) Sweden.