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. Why do women live more than men do today, and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know what the contribution of each factor is.

In spite of the weight, we know that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men today but not previously, is to be due to the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, علامات الحمل بولد there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once quite small but it has risen significantly in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you can verify that these two points apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.