Why Women Are More Likely To 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 makes women live longer than men in the present and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence is sketchy and تحاميل مهبلية we're only able to provide limited solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's examine 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 from 1790 until 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you are able to verify that these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.