Why Do Women 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 more than men do today, and why does this benefit increase over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

Independently of the exact amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men today however not as in the past, is to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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 every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of 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.

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

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was quite small, it has increased substantially over time.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.