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. What makes women live longer than men, and why is this difference growing in the past? There isn't much evidence and we have only some solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren't sure how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men today however not as previously, has to do with the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing 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 all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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In the richer countries, العاب زوجية the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once tiny but it has risen significantly over time.

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