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

Revision as of 08:12, 12 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 is the reason women live much longer than men today and how has this advantage increased in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each factor is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today and not previously, is to be due to the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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, علامات الحمل بولد 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, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries that it is today.
Let's now look at the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and علامات الحمل بولد women living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest, but it grew substantially in the past century.

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