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

Revision as of 23:46, 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 much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, تحاميل مهبلية we do not know how much each one contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once tiny It has significantly increased over time.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, تحاميل مهبلية and Sweden.