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 main reason women live longer than men? Why the advantage has grown in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men do today and not in the past, has to relate to the fact that a number of 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. Some are more complex. 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you can verify that these two points apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.