Difference between revisions of "Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 00:40, 14 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 so much longer than men today and how does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and العاب زوجية the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn't 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. 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 above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at the way that female advantages in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and العاب زوجية men living in America are living longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

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