Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 over time? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide incomplete solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men but not previously, is to relate to the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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In countries with high incomes, العاب زوجية the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.