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

Revision as of 21:17, 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 why women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure what the contribution to each of these variables is.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men today however not as in the past, is to relate to the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. What are these new 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 you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and اضيق وضعية للجماع women: اضيق وضعية للجماع female advantage in life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you can determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.