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

Revision as of 01:19, 13 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. Why do women live longer than men and how have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence is limited and we're left with only incomplete answers. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain biological or 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. 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, 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, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for افضل شامبو وبلسم (read) longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, افضل شامبو وبلسم the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.