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 reason women have a longer life span than men? Why the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence is limited and we only have some answers. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that play an integral role in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists in all countries, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is now.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, زيوت تطويل الشعر there's an upward trend: Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny It has significantly increased with time.

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