Why Women Are More Likely To 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's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly what the contribution to each of these variables is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her brother.

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 for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام - glorynote.com - out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once very small, it has increased substantially over time.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.