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's the reason why women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason is this difference growing in the past? There isn't much evidence and we have only partial solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present, but not in the past, has to relate to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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, ابر التخسيس so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for survivors, ابر التخسيس 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 the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US live a lot, 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 growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

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