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 more than men do today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is limited and we have only limited answers. We know there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know how much each factor العاب زوجية contributes.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? 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, 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you can verify that these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.