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

Revision as of 21:44, 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's the reason why women have a longer life span than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

We have learned that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

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