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. Why do women live much longer than men today and why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how much the influence of each factor is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men do today but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that several fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. For example, ابر التخسيس; click through the next article, 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men and women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, confirm that the two points also apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.