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 why women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only incomplete answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men and not previously, has to be due to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. 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 افضل شامبو وبلسم 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, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 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 life expectancy used be very modest however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.