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

Revision as of 12:48, 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's the reason women have a longer life span than men? And how is this difference growing over time? The evidence is limited and we only have some solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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, افضل كريم للشعر 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 - which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women living in America are living longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

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