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

Revision as of 09:45, 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's the reason women live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only limited answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly how significant the impact of each factor is.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men do today but not in the past, has to do with the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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. It is clear that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is today.
We will now examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and اضيق وضعية للجماع (writes in the official glorynote.com blog) 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was quite small, it has increased substantially over time.

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