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? And how the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we only have some solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What 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 every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her younger brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's now look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, علامات الحمل بولد it has increased substantially with time.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, verify that these two points are applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.