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 have a longer life span than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men do today but not in the past, has to do with the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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, 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

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

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and افضل شامبو وبلسم females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly in the past.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you are able to determine if these two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.