Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men

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's the reason women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason is this difference growing in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only limited answers. We know that behavioral, افضل كريم للشعر biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men in the present but not previously, is to have to do with the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. We can see that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

The chart above shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women used to be smaller
Let's now look at the way that female advantages in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you can determine if these two points are applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.