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 much longer than men today, and why has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have limited answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows male and زيوت تطويل الشعر female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially during the last century.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.