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. What's the reason women have a longer life span than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide some answers. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men today, but not in the past, has to be due to the fact that some fundamental 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. Some are more complex. For اضيق وضعية للجماع 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, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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 implies that a baby girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

First, 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 second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

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