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 reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And how does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we have only partial answers. We know that behavioral, زيوت تطويل الشعر biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know what the contribution of each factor is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men do today and not previously, has to be due to the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

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

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you can confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.