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. What is the reason women have a longer life span than men? Why does this benefit increase as time passes? The evidence is limited and we only have limited solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence to each of these variables is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men but not previously, is to be due to the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small but it increased substantially over the last century.

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