Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 02:22, 9 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. Why do women live longer than men in the present, and why has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure how significant the impact of each factor is.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men do today and not previously, is to relate to the fact that several important 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, اضيق وضعية للجماع (click the up coming web site) 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity - this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage of women in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span 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 terms of life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially with time.

You can verify that these are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.