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. Why do women live much longer than men today and why does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we only have limited solutions. Although we know that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However it 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. Certain 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 صبغ الشعر بالاسود (Suggested Website) men and women. It is clear that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her brothers.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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

There is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once very small, it has increased substantially in the past.

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