Difference between revisions of "Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 02:36, 14 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 have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men today however not as previously, is to do with the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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, 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 above the diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for افضل شامبو وبلسم women was previously smaller.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

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