Why 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. What's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown over time? The evidence is limited and we only have partial answers. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects 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 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 اضيق وضعية للجماع men and women. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half an hour.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries that it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

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

Second, there's an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small but it increased substantially during the last century.

You can check if these points are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.