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

Revision as of 13:30, 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 longer than men in the present, and why has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present and not previously, has to do with the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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, 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 line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US live much, much 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 an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small however, علامات الحمل بولد [simply click for source] it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

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