Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men

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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 why does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we have only partial solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each factor is.

We know that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, زيوت تطويل الشعر like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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 زيوت تطويل الشعر 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two things stand out.

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

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points are applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.