Why Do Women Live 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? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and افضل كريم للشعر relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

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

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