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's the reason women live longer than men? And كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور how has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence isn't conclusive and كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور we only have partial answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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 we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men and women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny however, it has grown significantly over time.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you can check that these two points are applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.