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 makes women live longer than men in the present, and why is this difference growing in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure how much each factor contributes.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men but not previously, تحاميل مهبلية has to be due to the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 expect to live longer than her brother.

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.