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 women are more likely to live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men, but not in the past, has to do with the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and افضل كريم للشعر - mouse click the following web page, 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, global differences are significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest however it increased dramatically over the last century.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.