Difference between revisions of "Why Do Women Have Longer Lives Than Men"

Revision as of 17:45, 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 why women have a longer life span than men? Why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men today however not as previously, is to have to do with the fact that some significant non-biological elements 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, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور especially for كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور 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 parity line , this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. and women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small, but it grew substantially during the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, check that these two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.