Why Women Are More Likely To 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. What is the reason women live longer than men and how does this benefit increase over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. 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, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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 اضيق وضعية للجماع women. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

This chart shows that, although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancies at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically in the past century.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.