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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present and how is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today but not previously, has to relate to the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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. We can see that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for افضل شامبو وبلسم women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is now.
Let's look at how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US are living much, افضل شامبو وبلسم much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once tiny however, it has grown significantly in the past.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, you can confirm that the two points are applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.