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 so longer than men and how is this difference growing in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, علامات الحمل بولد like the fact that men smoke more often. Some 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 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 diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

The chart above shows that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two points stand علامات الحمل بولد out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, you are able to verify that these two points apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.