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

Revision as of 21:42, 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 is the reason women live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have incomplete answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, has to do with the fact that certain 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. There are other issues 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. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

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 longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries that it is today.
We will now examine how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, تحاميل مهبلية there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, 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 getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was quite small, it has increased substantially in the past.

You can confirm that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.