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 and تحاميل مهبلية why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, تحاميل مهبلية like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men 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.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was quite small, it has increased substantially over time.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, verify that these two points also apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.