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

Revision as of 16:18, 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 are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

In spite of the amount of weight, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور (linked web site) we are aware that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men however not as in the past, is to be due to the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was tiny It has significantly increased over time.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you are able to determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.