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

Revision as of 13:50, 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 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 isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that play an integral role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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 men and women. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live for ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور [click through the next website page] 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots male and ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور female life expectancies when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live 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 female advantage in life expectancy was once very small, it has increased substantially over time.

You can verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.