Why 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 more than men do today and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is limited and we have only some answers. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in women living longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not due to the fact that certain 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. There are others that are more intricate. 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور there's an upward trend. Both men and 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 a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially over the last century.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points also apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.