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's the reason why women live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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, تحاميل مهبلية 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 تحاميل مهبلية 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 longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they used to 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 life expectancy used be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you can confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.