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

Revision as of 14:06, 10 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 longer than men in the present and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide some answers. We know that behavioral, biological and صبغ الشعر بالاسود environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today however not as in the past, has to have to do with the fact that certain key 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. Some are more complex. For example, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half each year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in the richer countries as compared to the present.
We will now examine how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny It has significantly increased in the past.

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