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 live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present however not as in the past, is to do with the fact that certain 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. Others are more complicated. 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, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her brother.

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is 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.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once tiny It has significantly increased in the past.

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