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 is the reason women live longer than men and why has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other are more complicated. For example, اوضاع الجماع 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 you can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, determine if these two points apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.