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. What is the reason women live more than men do today, and why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we only have limited solutions. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, افضل شامبو وبلسم like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. For example, افضل شامبو وبلسم 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 diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

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

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

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