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

Revision as of 01:02, 14 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 main reason women live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide partial answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least part of the reason women live longer than men in the present however not as previously, has to relate to the fact that several fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brothers.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once very small however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and صبغ الشعر بالاسود Sweden.