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

Revision as of 13:35, 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 longer than men and how has this advantage increased over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact of each factor is.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain 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 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 all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brother.

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage across all countries, اوضاع الجماع; Glorynote.com link for more info, اوضاع الجماع differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span 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 life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you can check that these two points apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.