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. Why do women live so longer than men, and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each factor contributes.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men today and not previously, has to do with the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور 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 - this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. and 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.

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

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