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 reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? And how the advantage has grown in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , تحاميل مهبلية which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be very modest however, تحاميل مهبلية (source web page) it has increased significantly over the last century.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.