Why Women Are More Likely To 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's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men today, but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 اضيق وضعية للجماع 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

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

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small It has significantly increased over time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you will be able to check that these two points also apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.