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 why women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in women living longer than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men do today and not in the past, is to do with the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that 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, 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 diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand صبغ الشعر بالاسود out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

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