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

Revision as of 15:15, 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. What is the reason women live more than men do today, and why is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men do today however not as previously, has to relate to 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries that it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men as well as 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.

There is an ever-widening gap: افضل شامبو وبلسم female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the last century.

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