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 is the reason women live longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart illustrates that, while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, زيوت تطويل الشعر (just click the next web page) while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in developed countries that it is today.
We will now examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

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

And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically over the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, check that these two points are also applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.