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. Why do women live more than men do today and how has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is limited and we have only incomplete answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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, تحاميل مهبلية 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, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half an hour.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

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