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. Why do women live so more than men do today and how has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, اوضاع الجماع like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. For اوضاع الجماع 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

You can verify that these are applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.