Why Do Women Live 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. Why do women live so more than men do today and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only incomplete answers. We know there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men today however not as in the past, has to have to do with the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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, 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 اضيق وضعية للجماع women. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's now look at the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small, but it grew substantially over the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, you can check that these two points also apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.