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 why does this benefit increase over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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 اوضاع الجماع 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her brother.

The chart above shows that although the female advantage exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women 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.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and اوضاع الجماع the UK.