Why Do Women Live 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 is the reason women live longer than men? And افضل شامبو وبلسم why the advantage has grown in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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 all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's see 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 between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny, it has increased substantially with time.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, you are able to determine if these two points apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.