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

Revision as of 11:15, 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. Why do women live so much longer than men today, and why is this difference growing in the past? There isn't much evidence and we only have incomplete solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors 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.

In spite of the amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present and not in the past, is to be due to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, 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 علامات الحمل بولد (https://glorynote.com/%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%84-%D8%A8%D9%88%D9%84%D8%AF/) men and women. We can see that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in rich countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living 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 a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small, but it grew substantially during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you are able to check that these two points are applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.