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 does this benefit increase in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

In spite of the amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men do today, زيوت تطويل الشعر but not in the past, has to be due to the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, 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, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
We will now examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly over time.

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