Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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's the main reason women live longer than men? Why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is limited and we have only limited solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not because of certain biological or 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. Some 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, 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

This graph shows 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 there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity was smaller
We will now examine the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you can confirm that the two points apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.