Difference between revisions of "Why Do Women Have Longer Lives Than Men"

Revision as of 17:16, 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 why women have a longer life span than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We only have partial evidence and اوضاع الجماع the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the weight, we know that at least part of the reason women live longer than men do today, but not previously, has to relate to the fact that some key 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. 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 اوضاع الجماع 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 you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.