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 have a longer life span than men? And how the advantage has grown over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present and not previously, has to do with the fact that certain significant non-biological elements 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 diagonal parity line - this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage throughout the world, صبغ الشعر بالاسود the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women living in America are living 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 growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

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