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 is the reason women live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men do today but not in the past, has to relate to the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other are more complicated. 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, ابر التخسيس 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 , which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, ابر التخسيس there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.