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. Why do women live much longer than men today and why has this advantage increased over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men, but not in the past, is to relate to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal line of parity - this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in rich countries than it is now.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور France, and Sweden.