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 so longer than men and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only limited answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each factor is.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or 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. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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, اوضاع الجماع 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 اوضاع الجماع women. It is clear that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.