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 much longer than men today and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide partial solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least part of the reason women live longer than men today, but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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 افضل شامبو وبلسم 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 means that a newborn girl from any country can expect to live longer than her brothers.

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.