Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 main reason women live longer than men? Why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have partial evidence and العاب زوجية the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today but not in the past, is to be due to the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that 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. It is clear that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, العاب زوجية there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you can confirm that the two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.