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. What's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase over time? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each of these factors is.

In spite of the amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men however not as in the past, has to relate to the fact that a number of fundamental 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. 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 above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her brother.

It is interesting to note that, ابر التخسيس (visit the up coming document) while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was less in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

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