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 why is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is limited and we only have partial answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than males, اضيق وضعية للجماع it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least part of the reason women live longer than men and not previously, has to do with the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and اضيق وضعية للجماع relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

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