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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we only have incomplete solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know what the contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of how much weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today, but not previously, is to be due to the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. These are the factors that 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 women. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, تحاميل مهبلية the longevity advantage for women used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small It has significantly increased in the past.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.