Why Are Women Living 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 why women live longer than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. These factors 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 اضيق وضعية للجماع women. It is clear that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

The chart above shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: اضيق وضعية للجماع While the female advantage in life expectancy was very small however, it has grown significantly over time.

Using the option 'Change country by country' in the chart, you can determine if these two points apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.