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 makes women live more than men do today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we have only some solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for علامات الحمل بولد 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially over the last century.

It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.