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. Why do women live longer than men and how is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we only have some answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how significant the impact of each factor is.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live longer than men in the present however not as in the past, is to relate to the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور 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, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

This graph shows that although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny however, it has grown significantly over time.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you can determine if these two points are applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.