Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 have a longer life span than men? Why the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence is limited and we only have partial solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that play an integral role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, زيوت تطويل الشعر regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 - this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they did a century 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 life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially during the last century.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.