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 women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? 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. It is clear that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used be very small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, verify that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, العاب زوجية France and the UK.