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 more than men do today and how has this advantage increased over time? There isn’t much evidence and we have only partial answers. Although we know that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.
In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men however not as previously, is to do with the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. 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. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brother.
This chart shows that, although there is a women’s advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.
__S.17__
__S.19__
In rich countries the women’s advantage in longevity was not as great.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.
There is an upward trend. and women in the US live much, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 life expectancy used to be quite small, it has increased substantially over time.
When you click on the option “Change country by country’ in the chart, determine if these two points apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.
Group Admins
-
Isabel Pratten created the group
Why do women have longer lives than men? 4 years ago