Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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? What is the reason does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is limited and we're left with only limited answers. We know there are biological, behavioral and افضل شامبو وبلسم (Highly recommended Internet site) environmental variables that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However, this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 ; which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.