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

Revision as of 18:00, 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's the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we only have incomplete answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that several 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. Others 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small however, افضل كريم للشعر (you can look here) it has increased significantly in the past century.

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