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 main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure how much the influence of each factor is.

We have learned that women are living longer than men, افضل شامبو وبلسم (talking to) regardless of weight. But this isn't because of certain non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men 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.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially over the last century.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, you can verify that these two points also apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.