Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer 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 live longer than men and how has this advantage increased over time? The evidence is sketchy and we only have incomplete solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But, اوضاع الجماع this is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. It is clear that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, اوضاع الجماع the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as 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 widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be extremely small It has significantly increased over time.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.