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 longer than men and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure how much the influence to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this isn't because of 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. Certain are more complicated. 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 العاب زوجية 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 baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small however, it has grown significantly over time.

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