Why Are Women Living 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 makes women live longer than men in the present and how has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only some answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men and not previously, is to be due to the fact that certain 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. 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 افضل شامبو وبلسم women. It is clear that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders 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 getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be very small but it has risen significantly in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, determine if these two points also apply to the other countries having available information: افضل شامبو وبلسم Sweden, France and the UK.