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. What's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And how does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide partial answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men, but not previously, is to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and 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 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.

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, global differences are significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: زيوت تطويل الشعر female advantage in life expectancy used be very small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, verify that these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.