Why Women Are More Likely To 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? Why the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is limited and we have only partial answers. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men, but not previously, is to be due to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. For علامات الحمل بولد 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 علامات الحمل بولد women. It is clear that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the global differences are significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

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

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was very small however, it has grown significantly with time.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you can determine if these two points also apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.