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 why women have a longer life span than men? And why the advantage has grown over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in women living longer than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 تحاميل مهبلية (glorynote.com) 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
We will now examine how the gender advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 until 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.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.