Why Are Women Living 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's the main reason women have a longer life span than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men do today but not previously, has to be due to the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in developed countries than it is now.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be quite small but it increased substantially during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries with available information: ابر التخسيس Sweden, France and the UK.