Why 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 does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we only have incomplete solutions. We know there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men in the present and not previously, has to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's now look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was very small, it has increased substantially in the past.

Using the option 'Change country by country' in the chart, check that these two points are applicable to the other countries with available information: ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور Sweden, France and the UK.