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

Revision as of 15:33, 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 longer than men in the present and how is this difference growing in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men do today, but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. What 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 line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, ابر التخسيس differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US live 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 terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

You can verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.