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 is the reason women live much longer than men today and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only limited solutions. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological or ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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 over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can expect to live longer than her brother.

This chart illustrates that, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. 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 advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries than it is now.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men and women in the US have a much longer life span 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 ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you can determine if these two points apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.