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 is the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only partial answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present however not as previously, is to have to do with the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and ابر التخسيس 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, ابر التخسيس 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half each year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries than it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was tiny however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.