Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 17:00, 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 why is this difference growing in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that all play a role in women living longer than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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. As you can see, صبغ الشعر بالاسود every country is above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: صبغ الشعر بالاسود female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially over the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.