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 and how have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 اضيق وضعية للجماع men and women. We can see that every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the global differences are significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once extremely small but it has risen significantly with time.

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