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's the reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? There isn't much evidence and we have only incomplete solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that play an integral role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men today but not previously, is to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, 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 every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.