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's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we only have limited answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, اضيق وضعية للجماع there is an upward trend. and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was very small It has significantly increased with time.

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