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 so longer than men and how have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only limited solutions. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور we are aware that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today, but not in the past, has to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her brother.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries than it is today.
Let's look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.