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. What's the reason women have a longer life span than men? And how is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is limited and we're left with only partial answers. We know that behavioral, biological and اضيق وضعية للجماع environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. 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 every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brother.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders 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.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be very small, it has increased substantially in the past.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, verify that these two points also apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.