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

Revision as of 16:38, 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 live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we have only incomplete answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today however not as in the past, has to relate to the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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, زيوت تطويل الشعر; why not try this out, 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. It is clear that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

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