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. Why do women live more than men do today and why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, زيوت تطويل الشعر the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is today.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny however, it has grown significantly in the past.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, you are able to check that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: زيوت تطويل الشعر Sweden, France and the UK.