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. What's the reason women have a longer life span than men? And how the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only limited solutions. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

We know that women are living longer than males, صبغ الشعر بالاسود regardless of weight. However, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the global differences are significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.