Why Women 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 women are more likely to live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason why women live longer than men and not in the past, has to relate to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. 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, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام 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 every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is today.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly with time.

You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام Sweden.