Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men

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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 have a longer life span than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, العاب زوجية we're not sure how much the influence to each of these variables is.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today, but not in the past, is to relate to the fact that certain 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. 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , العاب زوجية which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was tiny however, it has grown significantly with time.

It is possible to verify 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.