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 makes women live longer than men, and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, تحاميل مهبلية we don't know how much each factor contributes.

Independently of the exact weight, تحاميل مهبلية we know that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men but not in the past, has to be due to the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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, 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 above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from any country can expect to live longer than her brother.

This chart shows that, although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

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