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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have partial solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how much the influence to each of these variables is.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of 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, 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, افضل كريم للشعر 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 from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small, but it grew substantially over the last century.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.