Why Do Women Have Longer Lives Than Men

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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 are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown over time? There is only limited evidence and زيوت تطويل الشعر the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly what the contribution to each of these variables is.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the global differences are significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men and 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, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was very small, it has increased substantially over time.

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