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

Revision as of 22:14, 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. Why do women live longer than men and how have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that play an integral role in women living longer than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men do today but not previously, has to be due to the fact that certain fundamental non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 اوضاع الجماع 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 line of parity - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live 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 female advantage in terms of life expectancy was quite small however, it has grown significantly over time.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, you can determine if these two points apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.