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 much longer than men today, and why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide partial solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, افضل شامبو وبلسم like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries than it is today.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

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

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: افضل شامبو وبلسم female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, determine if these two points apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.