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 are more likely to live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide incomplete answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. These 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be 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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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور but it grew substantially over the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.