Why Are Women Living 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 makes women live more than men do today and how have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and افضل كريم للشعر environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men do today, but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that certain key 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. Some 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women 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.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

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