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's the main reason women live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. We know 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 how much each one contributes.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men in the present, but not previously, is to do with the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements 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. We can see that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brothers.

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand صبغ الشعر بالاسود out.

First, there is an upward trend. and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: صبغ الشعر بالاسود Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small It has significantly increased with time.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points also apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.