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 reason women live longer than men? Why is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we only have partial answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and اضيق وضعية للجماع environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, اضيق وضعية للجماع however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each of these factors is.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason why women live longer than men however not as in the past, is to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? 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 above the diagonal parity line - it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially in the past.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, you are able to determine if these two points are applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.