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? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide some solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. For زيوت تطويل الشعر 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can expect to live longer than her brothers.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small however it increased dramatically during the last century.

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