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 longer than men in the present, and why has this advantage increased in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men but not previously, has to do with the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is now.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, العاب زوجية it has increased substantially in the past.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed 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.