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 is the reason women live longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only limited solutions. We know there are behavioral, افضل كريم للشعر - just click the following post, biological and environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, افضل كريم للشعر regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. 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, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is today.
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially in the past century.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you can determine if these two points also apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.