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 is the reason women live longer than men and why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

In spite of how much weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men and not previously, is to have to do with the fact that several fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام 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, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام 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 over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brothers.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
We will now examine the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

You can verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.