Why 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 more than men do today and why does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we only have incomplete answers. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than men, صبغ الشعر بالاسود we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's examine how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

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.

Second, there's an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small but it increased substantially in the past century.

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