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, and why is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, افضل شامبو وبلسم 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. 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, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

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