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. What's the reason why women live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? There isn't much evidence and we have only partial answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence of each of these factors is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men in the present however not as previously, has to relate to the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men and علامات الحمل بولد (to Glorynote) women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially during the last century.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.