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

Revision as of 15:34, 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 are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in the longevity of women over men, صبغ الشعر بالاسود we don't know how much each factor contributes.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men today however not as in the past, has to be due to the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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 line of parity - which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is 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.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be very small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, you are able to check that these two points also apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.