Why Do Women Live 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 more than men do today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each of these factors is.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not because of certain biological factors 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. We can see that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less than half a calendar year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In rich countries the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be very small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and اضيق وضعية للجماع (glorynote.com) the UK.