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 is the reason women live longer than men, and why is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present and not in the past, has to have to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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, اوضاع الجماع 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. It is clear that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live for اوضاع الجماع 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you are able to verify that these two points are also applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.