Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 have a longer life span than men? And how the advantage has grown in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the amount, we can say that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present but not previously, is to have to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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, 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. It is clear that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives 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.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points also apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.