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 is the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence is limited and we only have incomplete solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, العاب زوجية like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, 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, every country is above the diagonal parity line , it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest however it increased dramatically over the last century.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.