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

Revision as of 03:43, 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. Why do women live longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing over time? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide partial answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and اضيق وضعية للجماع 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand اضيق وضعية للجماع out.

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

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country' on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points are applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.