Why Are Women Living 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 main reason women live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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, علامات الحمل بولد 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 we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, علامات الحمل بولد women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries than it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.