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

Revision as of 07:17, 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. What makes women live much longer than men today and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have limited solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure what the contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today however not as previously, has to have to do with the fact that a number of key 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. 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 women. It is clear that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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The advantage for كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.