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 is the reason women live longer than men in the present and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, تزويد مشتركين يوتيوب we’re not sure how much the influence to each of these variables is.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today and not in the past, has to be due to the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line – it means that in all nations a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

__S.17__

__S.19__

The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries than it is now.

Let’s examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women’s life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small, it has increased substantially over time.

Using the option ‘Change country’ on the chart, verify that these two points also apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.