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 is the reason women live more than men do today and why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're only able to provide incomplete solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence of each of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

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

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two points stand افضل شامبو وبلسم out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 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 be extremely small, افضل شامبو وبلسم but it grew substantially in the past century.

You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.