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's the main reason women have a longer life span than men? Why does this benefit increase as time passes? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, افضل شامبو وبلسم behavioral and environmental variables that all play a role in women living longer than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men do today but not in the past, is to relate to the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these changing factors? 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 in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, افضل شامبو وبلسم while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once very small however, it has grown significantly over time.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you can verify that these two points also apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.