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

Revision as of 16:32, 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 how is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only partial answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

We are aware 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 the factors that are changing? 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, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half an hour.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. 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.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was very small but it has risen significantly over time.

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