Why Are Women Living 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 and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we have only incomplete answers. We know there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور 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. 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 younger brother.

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
We will now examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men 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.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny however, it has grown significantly with time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you can check that these two points also apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.