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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide incomplete solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present however not as previously, is to have to do with the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? 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, 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 you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was less in developed countries than it is now.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once extremely small, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور it has increased substantially in the past.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.