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

Revision as of 04:40, 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. What's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain 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. Certain 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 diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists in all countries, global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially in the past.

You can confirm that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام (Glorynote write an article) Sweden.