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 much longer than men today, العاب زوجية [click through the up coming internet page] and why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women living in America are living longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.