Why Women Are More Likely To 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 women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial solutions. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men today and not previously, is to be due to the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small, but it grew substantially over the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.