Difference between revisions of "Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 18:20, 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 makes women live longer than men, and why has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we only have partial answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men, but not previously, is to be due to the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. What 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام (please click the following page) difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

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