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's the reason why women have a longer life span than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only limited answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, ابر التخسيس like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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, 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her younger brother.

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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In the richer countries, ابر التخسيس the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has grown significantly over time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.