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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present, and why does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only limited answers. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men and not in the past, has to be due to the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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 all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, العاب زوجية [https://glorynote.com] much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be extremely small but it has risen significantly with time.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.