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

Revision as of 10:00, 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 is the reason women live much longer than men today and how has this advantage increased over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

Independently of the exact amount of weight, we are aware that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men today, but not previously, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام is to be due to the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men 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.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

It is possible to verify 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.