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 have a longer life span than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men do today however not as previously, is to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. These 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 above the diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did a century 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 was extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you are able to determine if these two points also apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور France and the UK.