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 is the reason women live much longer than men today, and why is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this isn't because of certain 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. Others 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. As you can see, العاب زوجية every country is above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half an hour.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

Second, there's an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

You can verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.