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

Revision as of 01:12, 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. What's the reason women have a longer life span than men? And how is this difference growing as time passes? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, العاب زوجية behavioral and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

Independently of the exact amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men do today however not as previously, is to have to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; 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 now look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest however it increased dramatically over the last century.

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