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 as time passes? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. We know there are behavioral, تحاميل مهبلية biological and environmental variables which all play a part in the longevity of women over men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

We have learned that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - it means that in all nations a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's see 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 over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men and 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.

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

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.