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

Revision as of 02:56, 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 are more likely to live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure how significant the impact of each factor is.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men today but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that a number of fundamental 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. Certain are more complicated. 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, زيوت تطويل الشعر the global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is today.
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

You can verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.