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

Revision as of 09:23, 11 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 so longer than men in the present, and why has this advantage increased in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution to each of these variables is.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, تحاميل مهبلية and Sweden.