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 is the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why the advantage has grown over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, 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 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 diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

First, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور there is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives 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 was once tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

Using the option 'Change country by country' in the chart, you are able to verify that these two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.