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

Revision as of 01:51, 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 so longer than men in the present, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each factor is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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. We can see that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

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

The gap is widening: علامات الحمل بولد While the female advantage in life expectancy was once tiny, it has increased substantially with time.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.