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 main reason women live longer than men? And صبغ الشعر بالاسود how has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not previously, has to relate to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women used to be smaller
We will now examine how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points also apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.