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. Why do women live so much longer than men today and why has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, we do not know what percentage each factor العاب زوجية plays in.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men and not previously, is to have to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the global differences are significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries as compared to the present.
We will now examine how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. and women in the US live much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny It has significantly increased in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.