Difference between revisions of "Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 16:28, 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 women have a longer life span than men? Why is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that all play a role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of how much weight, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men do today, but not previously, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور has to do with the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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 diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small, it has increased substantially over time.

You can check if these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.