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 why women have a longer life span than men? Why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only limited solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution to each of these variables is.

Independently of the exact weight, ابر التخسيس we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men do today but not in the past, has to do with the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. These factors are changing. 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 diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
We will now examine the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increasing gap: ابر التخسيس (simply click the up coming webpage) The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small but it increased substantially during the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country' on the chart, you can verify that these two points are applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.