Difference between revisions of "Why Do Women Have Longer Lives Than Men"

Revision as of 23:30, 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 have a longer life span than men? And why does this benefit increase in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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 every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly with time.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, افضل كريم للشعر France, and Sweden.