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. Why do women live longer than men in the present and how is this difference growing in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. We recognize that biological, تحاميل مهبلية (watch this video) behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how significant the impact of each factor is.
In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men do today but not in the past, is to be due to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity – this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1
This chart illustrates that, although there is a women’s advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.
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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let’s now look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women’s life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly in the past.
When you click on the option “Change country by country’ in the chart, you are able to check that these two points are applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.
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Why do women live longer than men? 4 years ago