Why Do 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 makes women live longer than men, and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? The evidence is limited and we only have some answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure how much the influence of each factor is.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this isn't because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can be expected to live for العاب زوجية longer than her younger brother.

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and العاب زوجية men in America live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was very small It has significantly increased with time.

You can verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.