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

Revision as of 10:10, 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 makes women live longer than men, and why has this advantage increased over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women who live longer than men, we do not know how much each one contributes.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men in the present, تحاميل مهبلية but not previously, is to relate to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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 تحاميل مهبلية men and women. As you can see, all countries are 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

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically during the last century.

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