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 makes women live longer than men and how does this benefit increase over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that play an integral role in the longevity of women over males, تحاميل مهبلية it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, تحاميل مهبلية 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 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 diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women used to be smaller
Let's now look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly with time.

You can confirm that these principles 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.