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

Revision as of 05:30, 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 much longer than men today and how have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We only have a few clues and العاب زوجية the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know what the contribution of each of these factors is.

We have learned that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and العاب زوجية (informative post) female lifespans when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

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

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, you are able to check that these two points are applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.