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 why women have a longer life span than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger over time? There isn't much evidence and زيوت تطويل الشعر we're left with only some solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure what the contribution to each of these variables is.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at least part of the reason women live longer than men do today, but not previously, has to be due to the fact that a number of key 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. Others 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, verify that these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.