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

Revision as of 06:43, 12 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 and why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we have only partial answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men in the present but not previously, is to do with the fact that some important 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. Some 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 كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام (Click That Link) women. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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In wealthy countries, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you are able to determine if these two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.