LIFE EXPECTANCY

Highest life expectancy


Lowest life expentancy




Humans life expectancy is growing thanks to to medical advantages and lifestyle improvements. Our longevity has been increasing over the past century, not only the average life expectancy since 1900, but a larger number of people are living to older ages. An important datum is that developed countries have a higher life expectancy than developing ones. There are nine factors that could determine mortality and longevity. Now, I am going to analyse them.


First of all we can talk about the gender. Females, according to different studies, have a lower mortality rate than men. This has different causes, historic and genetic ones. Throughout history, men have had harder works while their women were taking care of their childs and houses, so females had a healthier life. Because genetics may play a role in nine of the top 10 causes of death, according to the Centers for Disease Control, regarding to a genetic factor we should analysed the impact of some components of women's bodies that low the risk of suffering some diseases, like estrogen, that protects them eliminating cholesterol, lowering the risk of suffering heart diseases. Both causes could be causing a lower women mortality average than in men. As a conclusion we can say that in addition of gender, there are also genetic factors that determine humans life expectancy.


Secondly, we can talk about prenatal and childhood conditions, that are usually associated with higher mortality, even at advanced ages.

In addition, the marital and the socio-economic status are very important. Regarding to Marital status, several studies confirm that married people have lower mortality rates than those who were never married, divorced or even widowed and, regarding to the socio-economic status, we can say that if you are living a bad economic situation, it could affect the access to medical care and resources in some cases. Education is related with this because higher education levels are linked to higher socio-economic status and both are linked to improved longevity. As well, ethnicity could affect mortality rates.


Talking about the lifestyle, we can say that factors as unhealthy diet, tobacco use, alcohol, obesity affect it, as well as a warmer climate is associated better health.



Finally, the advances in medical technology such as the development of antibiotics and immunizations, the surgery, the cardiac care and organs transplants and others, have all helped push the average life expectancy higher.


The countries with the biggest life expectancy that are show in the maps are: Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Spain, Australia, Italy, Iceland, Israel, France and Sweden in the order in this order.

First, as I explained before, we can analyse gender in those countries, and conclude that women live more than men, for biological, genetic and historic causes.

On the other hand, regarding to prenatal and childhood conditions we can argue that in developed countries such as this ones, are better.

But there are more reasons that make life expectancy grow, like the marital status or socioeconomic, or the medical technology, that are very important. But the main factor which affects mortality is lifestyle, that is much better in developed countries.

On the other hand, and talking about countries that are less developed, we can say that these ones have less live expectancy, they are: Sierra Leone, Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d´Ivoire, Lesotho, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Cameroon.

There are very notable differences between developed and underdeveloped countries. Some of the most common factors of mortality in these countries are; absence of vaccines, bad nutrition and poor education in children under ten years.

Regarding to the time of being mother, motherhood will be different between the two countries, it would have difficulties. Finally talking about teenagers and adults, the type of food, the illnesses, the lifestyle are relevant. Many food they eat, most of it comes from animals that have diseases that affect human. They live in shanty villages surrounded by lot of bacterias and viruses because the lack of human rights, money and medical advantages.