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 is the reason women live more than men do today and how does this benefit increase in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that all play a role in women living longer than men, اضيق وضعية للجماع we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today but not in the past, has to be due to the fact that some key 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, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small however, it has grown significantly over time.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.