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 live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological, زيوت تطويل الشعر and environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men do today however not as in the past, has to have to do with the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men 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, the gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once extremely small however, it has grown significantly with time.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, زيوت تطويل الشعر you will be able to check that these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.