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 live much longer than men today and why has this advantage increased in the past? There isn't much evidence and we have only some answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men, but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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 all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the global differences are significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they did a century 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 life expectancy was once tiny, it has increased substantially in the past.

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