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 much longer than men today and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only some answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and ابر التخسيس relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. 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 line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can expect to live longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage everywhere, ابر التخسيس cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.

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

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.