Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men

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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 is the reason women live longer than men, and why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, However, we're not sure how much the influence to each of these variables is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men in the present and not previously, has to relate to the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and علامات الحمل بولد 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. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her brother.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.