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

Revision as of 01:42, 13 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? Why the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence is sketchy and ابر التخسيس we only have partial answers. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men however not as in the past, has to do with the fact that certain 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 women. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries than it is now.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand ابر التخسيس out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.