Why Women Are More Likely To Live Longer Than Men

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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 has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and افضل كريم للشعر environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. 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. It is clear that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small, it has increased substantially over time.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.