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 is the reason women live longer than men, and why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is limited and we only have some solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men do today, but not previously, is to have to do with the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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. It is clear that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور longer than her brothers.

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور (glorynote.com) the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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

There is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they used to 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 be quite small however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you can determine if these two points are applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.