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 main reason women live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only limited answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present, but not previously, has to be due to the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور, you could try this out, men and women. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

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

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be quite small, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you are able to determine if these two points are applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.