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 makes women live much longer than men today and how does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only incomplete solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and تحاميل مهبلية environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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, تحاميل مهبلية 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line , it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the global differences are significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially over time.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, you can determine if these two points apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.