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

Revision as of 14:42, 9 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 longer than men in the present and how does this benefit increase over time? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men, but not in the past, has to do with the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage in all countries, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور (Suggested Site) the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially in the past century.

It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.