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 have a longer life span than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, اضيق وضعية للجماع biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

In spite of the weight, we know that at least part of the reason women live longer than men in the present and not in the past, has to have to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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 every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, اضيق وضعية للجماع there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century 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 to be very small but it increased substantially during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you can verify that these two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.