Why 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 why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only limited solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men in the present but not in the past, has to have to do with the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, افضل كريم للشعر like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. For example, افضل كريم للشعر 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small but it has risen significantly in the past.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.