Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? Why is this difference growing as time passes? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have limited solutions. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, العاب زوجية we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men however not as in the past, has to relate to the fact that certain 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. 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, 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 baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders 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.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small but it has risen significantly with time.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.