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 much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we only have incomplete solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of the amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason why women live longer than men today, but not previously, is to relate to the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries than it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live 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 getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly over time.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, تحاميل مهبلية - glorynote.com, you can determine if these two points are also applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.