Why 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 live longer than men? Why the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence is limited and we only have incomplete answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this isn't because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half each year.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: اضيق وضعية للجماع female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically during the last century.

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