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? And how has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only some solutions. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables which all play a part in women who live longer than males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. For العاب زوجية 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. It is clear that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790-2014. Two points 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.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially in the past century.

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