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? What is the reason is this difference growing over time? The evidence is limited and we only have limited solutions. We recognize that biological, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each factor is.

We have learned that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity - it means that in all nations a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially during the last century.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.