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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly what the contribution to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, determine if these two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.