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

Revision as of 18:38, 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 live longer than men and how has this advantage increased over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 men and women. We can see that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brother.

The chart above shows that the advantage of women is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was extremely small however, زيوت تطويل الشعر it has grown significantly over time.

You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and زيوت تطويل الشعر Sweden.