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 have a longer life span than men? Why is this difference growing as time passes? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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 diagonal parity line , this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they used to 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 quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and اضيق وضعية للجماع the UK.