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. Why do women live so longer than men and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide incomplete answers. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that play an integral role in women living longer than men, we don't know how much each factor اضيق وضعية للجماع contributes.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present, but not in the past, is to relate to the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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 men and women. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.