Why Are Women Living 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's the main reason women have a longer life span than men? And why the advantage has grown as time passes? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and صبغ الشعر بالاسود relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her brothers.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live a lot, 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 growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was very small, it has increased substantially with time.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.