Why 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 why women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason is this difference growing over time? The evidence is limited and we're left with only incomplete answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

We have learned that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, اوضاع الجماع like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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 all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

The chart above shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half an hour.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, اوضاع الجماع the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was quite small however, it has grown significantly over time.

When you click on the option "Change country' on the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.