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? And how the advantage has grown over time? The evidence is sketchy and we only have some answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

We have learned that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However, this is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, تحاميل مهبلية like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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, تحاميل مهبلية 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 any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you are able to check that these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.