Why Women 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 main reason women have a longer life span than men? And how is this difference growing in the past? There isn't much evidence and we have only some solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries than it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

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