Why Are Women Living 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 reason women live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase as time passes? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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 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 although there is a women's advantage in all countries, اوضاع الجماع the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand اوضاع الجماع out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small, it has increased substantially in the past.

It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.