Why 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 live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial solutions. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men and not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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 زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century 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 quite small however, it has grown significantly with time.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.