Why Are Women Living 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 is the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence is limited and we only have partial solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. 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 we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for افضل كريم للشعر women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

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

Second, there's an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used be very small, but it grew substantially over the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points are applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.