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's the reason why women live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase as time passes? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have some answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present, but not in the past, has to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can expect to live longer than her brothers.

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men and women in the US are living much, علامات الحمل بولد much 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 increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the last century.

It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.