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

Revision as of 13:58, 8 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 are more likely to live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today but not previously, has to be due to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, اوضاع الجماع 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, اوضاع الجماع the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you will be able to check that these two points also apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.