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? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence is sketchy and we have only incomplete answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, اوضاع الجماع 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, 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 implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her brothers.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be tiny It has significantly increased over time.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, verify that these two points also apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.