Difference between revisions of "Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 01:33, 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 how has this advantage gotten larger over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, has to have to do with the fact that certain fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? 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 implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brother.

This graph shows that although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand اضيق وضعية للجماع out.

There is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 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 life expectancy was once very small It has significantly increased over time.

Using the option 'Change country by country' in the chart, you can check that these two points apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.