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's the reason women have a longer life span than men? And افضل شامبو وبلسم (Highly recommended Online site) how is this difference growing over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.