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 is the reason women live much longer than men today and how is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide partial solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

We have learned that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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 men and women. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

This chart shows that, although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, العاب زوجية determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.