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, and اضيق وضعية للجماع why has this advantage increased in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present but not previously, has to relate to the fact that some 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 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, 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 all countries are above the diagonal parity line , اضيق وضعية للجماع which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries than it is now.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much 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 life expectancy used to be extremely small, it has increased substantially in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.