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

Revision as of 17:56, 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 is the reason women live longer than men and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have some answers. We know 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.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present, but not previously, is to be due to the fact that certain fundamental non-biological factors 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 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 in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries that it is today.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, اضيق وضعية للجماع (article source) much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can check if the points you've listed 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.