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 is the reason women live longer than men and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in the longevity of women over men, افضل شامبو وبلسم we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least part of the reason women live longer than men in the present and not in the past, has to be due to the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 diagonal parity line - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries than it is now.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, افضل شامبو وبلسم the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was very small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

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