Why Are Women Living 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 more than men do today, and why has this advantage increased over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men today but not in the past, has to have to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her older brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, تحاميل مهبلية (official website) women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small, but it grew substantially over the last century.

It is possible to verify that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.