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 why women have a longer life span than men? And why is this difference growing over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men but not previously, is to relate to the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements 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, 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 all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage for كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور women in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور and Sweden.