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 reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? And how the advantage has grown over time? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide incomplete answers. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which play a significant role in women living longer than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor افضل كريم للشعر plays in.

We have learned that women are living 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. There are other issues that are more intricate. For افضل كريم للشعر 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at the way that female advantages in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once extremely small It has significantly increased over time.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you can confirm that the two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.