Who Are We - Women Live Longer

Life expectancy data for the 1900 to 1998 period are shown on this graph for women and men. The bars on the bottom of the graph show the difference between women's and men's life expectancy. In 1900 women were expected to live 2 years longer than men, in 1998 5.7 years longer; the smallest difference, one year longer, still in favor of women, came in 1920 and was most likely a consequence of the flu epidemic of 1918.

Women live longer than men. Various explanations have been offered.⁴ These explanations usually involve behavioral and physical differences. Males exhibit more reckless and violent behavior after the onset of puberty. The male death rate flares up in the 15 to 24 age group because of traffic deaths, homicides, suicides, cancer, and drowning. "Bad" cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein) is increased in the blood by testosterone and leads to higher rates of heart disease and stroke. Estrogen, on the other hand, lowers LDL cholesterol and increases high-density lipoproteins, which are beneficial.

Males have an advantage at the beginning; 115 are conceived for every 100 females, but "their numbers are preferentially whittled down thereafter. Just 104 boys are born for every 100 girls because of the disproportionate rate of spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and miscarriages of male fetuses" [Perls].

Evidently the differential in favor of women is of long standing, going back at least as far as 1500. Swedish records (the earliest mortality data for a nation) show that in the second half of the 18th century similar differences prevailed.

Women as a Percent of Total Population

The population aged 40 years and older becomes increasingly more female — as shown in the graphic on the left, which is based on 1990 data. Sixty-five of 100 people aged 80 and older were women. This percentage reaches almost 80% among nonagenarians.

Biological differences become much more pronounced in the period following World War II. In the 45 years before then, women were more prone to die in childbirth and were as much subject to epidemics — not yet brought under control by modern medicine — as men.

High life expectancy is, of course, a consequence of collective social and economic success. Growth in life expectancy may slow and stop as the natural life span is reached under optimal conditions — and conditions can change.

In the next panel we touch on this subject by examining differences between whites and other races.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics Reports. Vol. 47. No. 28. December 13, 1999. Online. 2002. Available: www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr47/nvs47_28.pdf. Population data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census.