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

Revision as of 05:54, 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 have a longer life span than men? And why the advantage has grown in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than men, we do not know 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 but not previously, is to have to do with the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, افضل شامبو وبلسم the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small, it has increased substantially over time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.