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

Revision as of 23:34, 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 how has this advantage gotten larger in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than men, اوضاع الجماع we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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, اوضاع الجماع 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her brother.

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.