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. Why do women live so much longer than men today and why is this difference growing in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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 line of parity - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, اوضاع الجماع the global differences are significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living 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 widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you are able to verify that these two points apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.