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 makes women live longer than men in the present and how is this difference growing over time? The evidence is limited and we have only some solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live longer than men in the present but not in the past, has to have to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
We will now examine how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and العاب زوجية females at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.