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. What is the reason women live more than men do today and why is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only limited solutions. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

In spite of how much weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men, but not previously, is to have to do with the fact that a number of 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. There are other issues 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 women. As we can see, العاب زوجية, mouse click the next page, every country is above the diagonal parity line - it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

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