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

Revision as of 22:06, 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 main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only incomplete answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each of these factors is.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain 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. Other are more complicated. 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 - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, ابر التخسيس while in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries than it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small It has significantly increased in the past.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, ابر التخسيس you are able to confirm that the two points also apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.