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. What is the reason women have a longer life span than men? And how the advantage has grown in the past? We only have a few clues and علامات الحمل بولد (glorynote.com) the evidence is not sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not because of certain 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. Other 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 over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her younger brother.

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries than it is today.
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and علامات الحمل بولد Sweden.