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. Why do women live more than men do today and how is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is limited and we're left with only incomplete solutions. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

In spite of the weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men today however not as in the past, is to relate to the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that 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 كريم للشعر 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 over 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 the advantage of women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: افضل كريم للشعر While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was very small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you will be able to check that these two points also apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.