Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 main reason women live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase as time passes? We only have a few clues and تحاميل مهبلية the evidence is not sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's now look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders 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 widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small It has significantly increased in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.