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. What's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only incomplete answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in women living longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. For كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام longer than her brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically during the last century.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you are able to check that these two points apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.