Why Women Are More Likely To 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 the advantage has grown over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables that play an integral role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know how much each one contributes.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present but not in the past, is to relate to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. For اضيق وضعية للجماع 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 line of parity - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is now.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, اضيق وضعية للجماع and Sweden.