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's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence is sketchy and we only have incomplete solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than men, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. 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, 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 above the diagonal parity line ; which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists in all countries, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live 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 quite small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.