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 women are more likely to live longer than men? And how the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence is limited and we have only partial answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. 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, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from any country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there's 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.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small but it increased substantially over the last century.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, صبغ الشعر بالاسود and Sweden.