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 are more likely to live longer than men? And how does this benefit increase as time passes? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each of these factors is.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men today but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brothers.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows male and العاب زوجية female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

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

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

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