Why 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's the reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? And how is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live longer than men today however not as in the past, has to have to do with the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. For صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - it means that in all nations a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer 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 rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny, صبغ الشعر بالاسود it has increased substantially over time.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you can verify that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.