Why Women Are More Likely To 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. What's the reason why women live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence is limited and we have only incomplete solutions. We know there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women live longer than men, العاب زوجية regardless of their weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the global differences are significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, you can confirm that the two points are applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.