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 are more likely to live longer than men? And how is this difference growing as time passes? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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 you can see, 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 newborn boy.1

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for اضيق وضعية للجماع women was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly over time.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.