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

Revision as of 09:58, 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. What's the reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? Why does this benefit increase over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men and not previously, is to relate to the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. 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 زيوت تطويل الشعر men and women. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span 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 growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny It has significantly increased with time.

When you click on the option "Change country' on the chart, determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.