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's the reason women live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide some solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure what the contribution of each factor is.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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. We can see that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half each year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy 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 points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live 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 life expectancy used to be very small but it increased substantially over the last century.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور Sweden.