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 is the reason women live longer than men in the present, and why is this difference growing over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men and not in the past, is to relate to the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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. It is clear 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 older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women 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 between 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

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

There is a widening gap: علامات الحمل بولد The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially in the past century.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, you are able to determine if these two points apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.