Difference between revisions of "Why Do Women Have Longer Lives Than Men"

Revision as of 14:23, 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 makes women live much longer than men today, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide some answers. We know that biological, افضل شامبو وبلسم behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, has to relate to the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half an hour.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, افضل شامبو وبلسم France, and Sweden.