Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 reason women live longer than men? And how is this difference growing over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide limited answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not previously, has to do with the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. For example, افضل شامبو وبلسم 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small, it has increased substantially in the past.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, determine if these two points are also applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.