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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present and how is this difference growing over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, زيوت تطويل الشعر like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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, 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 every country could anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with 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.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny It has significantly increased over time.

When you click on the option "Change country' on the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.