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 so longer than men, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects 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 افضل كريم للشعر women. We can see that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries that it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once tiny but it has risen significantly in the past.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.