Why 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 is the reason women live more than men do today, and why has this advantage increased over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We know that behavioral, اوضاع الجماع biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, اوضاع الجماع 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live 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 quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.