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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? And why the advantage has grown in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological, علامات الحمل بولد and environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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. We can see that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brother.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, علامات الحمل بولد (Read the Full Report) differences between countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
We will now examine the way that female advantages 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 things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer 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 advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.