Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 have a longer life span than men? And how is this difference growing over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this isn't because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. and 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, there's an increasing gap: افضل شامبو وبلسم The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

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