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

Revision as of 01:58, 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 main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence is limited and we only have incomplete answers. We know there are biological, psychological and افضل شامبو وبلسم environmental variables which play a significant role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men do today and not in the past, افضل شامبو وبلسم has to have to do with the fact that certain 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. Certain 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity - this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they were a century 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 to be very modest however it increased dramatically over the last century.

You can verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.