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 more than men do today, and why has this advantage increased over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only incomplete answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men do today and not previously, has to be due to the fact that a number of key 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 علامات الحمل بولد 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for علامات الحمل بولد longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives 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 increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

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