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 longer than men and how is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only incomplete answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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 you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام there is an upward trend. Women and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام men in America have longer lives than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was very small, it has increased substantially in the past.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, verify that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.