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 main reason women have a longer life span than men? Why the advantage has grown in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present however not as in the past, has to have to do with the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, especially for survivors, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. and women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically in the past century.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.