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. Why do women live more than men do today and why does this benefit increase in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren’t sure how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men however not as in the past, has to do with the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, تزويد متابعين تويتر the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller

Let’s look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small It has significantly increased over time.

By selecting ‘Change Country’ on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.