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's the reason women live longer than men? And how is this difference growing over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, تحاميل مهبلية biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each factor is.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men do today and not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these new factors? 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 men and women. We can see that all countries are 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 graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small, it has increased substantially in the past.

You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.