Why Do 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 makes women live longer than men and why has this advantage increased over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only incomplete solutions. We know there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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, افضل كريم للشعر (simply click the following site) 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 ; which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was very small however, it has grown significantly with time.

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