Why Do Women Live Longer 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. Why do women live so more than men do today and why has this advantage increased over time? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, ابر التخسيس we do not know how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men in the present but not in the past, has to be due to the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. For ابر التخسيس 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 we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small It has significantly increased over time.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, confirm that the two points are applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.