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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger over time? There isn't much evidence and we have only some solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men, but not in the past, has to do with the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, العاب زوجية 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 line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's look at the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women 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.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

You can verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, العاب زوجية and Sweden.