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 is the reason women have a longer life span than men? And why is this difference growing over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-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. Others are more complicated. For زيوت تطويل الشعر example, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women living in America are living longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small, it has increased substantially in the past.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.