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 so much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables which play a significant role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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, 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 diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries than it is today.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two points stand كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest, but it grew substantially over the last century.

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