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. Why do women live longer than men in the present, and why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only partial answers. Although we know that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors that play an integral role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We have learned that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this isn't because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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 above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: صبغ الشعر بالاسود The female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, صبغ الشعر بالاسود France, and Sweden.