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's the reason women live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is limited and we only have incomplete answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each of these factors is.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or ابر التخسيس 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. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can expect to live longer than her brother.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially over the last century.

It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.