Why Are Women Living 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 longer than men in the present and why has this advantage increased in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

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

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.