Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 09:46, 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 makes women live more than men do today and why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have partial evidence and العاب زوجية the evidence isn't sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, 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, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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 parity line - it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: العاب زوجية Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be extremely small but it has risen significantly with time.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, confirm that the two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.