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 is the reason women live much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men today however not as previously, is to have to do with the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: اضيق وضعية للجماع Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small, it has increased substantially with time.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, confirm that the two points also apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.