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

Revision as of 16:53, 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. What's the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing as time passes? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide some solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men do today but not previously, has to do with the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small, but it grew substantially during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, زيوت تطويل الشعر you are able to verify that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, زيوت تطويل الشعر France and the UK.