Why 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 how has this advantage gotten larger over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that, while the advantage for women exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.