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

Revision as of 05:28, 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's the main reason women live longer than men? Why is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide incomplete answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, has to do with the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage 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 areas stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.