Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men

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 so more than men do today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only limited solutions. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors which play a significant role in women who live longer than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small but it has risen significantly over time.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, verify that these two points also apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.