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

Revision as of 15:24, 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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? And how the advantage has grown as time passes? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, افضل كريم للشعر 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 we can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, افضل كريم للشعر there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small, but it grew substantially over the last century.

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