Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 15:29, 8 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 live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger over time? There is only limited evidence and صبغ الشعر بالاسود the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain 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. 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 صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men and women in the US live much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially during the last century.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, check that these two points apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.