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. Why do women live so much longer than men today and why has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and صبغ الشعر بالاسود the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In rich countries the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points are also applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.