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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present and how does this benefit increase over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام environmental variables which play a significant role in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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 men and women. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, you are able to check that these two points are applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.