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. Why do women live so longer than men and how have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have limited answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, 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 every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In wealthy countries, تحاميل مهبلية the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women 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.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.