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. Why do women live longer than men, and why has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women live longer than men, زيوت تطويل الشعر regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 parity line , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

It is possible to verify that these points 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.