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 reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing as time passes? The evidence is limited and we have only some solutions. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that all play a role in women’s longevity more than males, we aren’t sure how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, Laserstuff.net/__media__/js/netsoltrademark.php?d=Glorynote.com%2F%25d9%2588%25d8%25b5%25d9%2581%25d8%25a7%25d8%25aa-%25d8%25b7%25d8%25a8%25d8%25ae%2F – why not check here – regardless of weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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, 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 line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in developed countries than it is now.

We will now examine the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the men and women’s life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially with time.

When you click on the option «Change country in the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.