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 longer than men in the present and how have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only some solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each of these factors is.

It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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In wealthy countries, اضيق وضعية للجماع the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: اضيق وضعية للجماع While the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small but it has risen significantly in the past.

Using the option 'Change country in the chart, you can check that these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.