Why Do 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 much longer than men today and why is this difference growing in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide partial solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today but not in the past, has to have to do with the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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, كيفية إقامة علاقة بالصور 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 parity line - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in developed countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

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

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once tiny however, it has grown significantly in the past.

It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.