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. What makes women live longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing over time? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only incomplete answers. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, 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, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, علامات الحمل بولد (just click the up coming internet page) 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 parity line - it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

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

The gap is increasing: علامات الحمل بولد While the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small, it has increased substantially over time.

When you click on the option "Change country' on the chart, you can determine if these two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.