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. What's the reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men do today and not previously, has to be due to the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, افضل كريم للشعر like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 ; which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.