Do Women Really Live Longer than Men? Here’s the Explanation
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VIVA – There’s an ancient belief that women live longer than men. According to Academies from Denmark, although men have a lower life expectancy than women, men have a 'great chance to outlive women'.
Researchers said, life expectancies are a simplistic measure which are often interpreted as meaning that men do not live as long as women.
A better measure would be to examine the ages of men and women in different countries, the study said.
The study, published in the journal BMJ Open, examined data on the ages of men and women in 199 countries for nearly 200 years.
The analysis concluded that men are more likely to live longer than women, especially those who are married and have degrees.
Men who are married or have a college degree tend to outlive women who are unmarried or do not have a diploma,” the authors said.
They found that the odds of a man living longer than a woman were between 25 percent and 50 percent.
Studies show large differences in life expectancy, masking the substantial overlap in age between the sexes.
They concluded that although male life expectancy is generally lower than female life expectancy, and male mortality rates are typically higher at all ages, males have a greater chance of living longer than females.
"These findings challenge the common impression that 'men don't live as long as women' and reveal more nuanced inequalities in life span between women and men," the study said.