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 does this benefit increase as time passes? The evidence is limited and we have only partial solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which play a significant role in women's longevity more than men, صبغ الشعر بالاسود we do not know how much each one contributes.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

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

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small, but it grew substantially over the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points are applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.