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

Revision as of 15:44, 10 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 is the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure what the contribution of each factor is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological or 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. Some are more complex. For example, اوضاع الجماع 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 baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and اوضاع الجماع females at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. 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.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.