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's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

It is known that women live longer than males, زيوت تطويل الشعر - look at here, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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 women. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

You can confirm that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.