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? And why has this advantage gotten larger in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have some solutions. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men but not in the past, is to be due to the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 العاب زوجية men and women. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can expect to live longer than her brother.

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists in all countries, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you are able to determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.