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

Revision as of 09:43, 11 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 longer than men? And why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only some answers. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that all play a role in women living longer than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However, this is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, تحاميل مهبلية like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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 تحاميل مهبلية men and women. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.

You can verify that these are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.