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 makes women live longer than men in the present and how has this advantage increased in the past? There isn’t much evidence and we’re only able to provide some solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don’t know exactly how significant the impact to each of these variables is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men, but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity – this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.

Let’s examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and Www.xinyubi.com/index.php/User:VGGBrandi976 female life expectancy at the birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live much, much 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 increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once tiny but it has risen significantly with time.

If you select the option “Change country in the chart, you are able to check that these two points apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.