Why Do Women Live 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 is the reason women live more than men do today and how has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we have only limited answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But, this is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. 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, افضل شامبو وبلسم 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 over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be very small It has significantly increased in the past.

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