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. What's the main reason women live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence is limited and we have only partial solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that play an integral role in women living longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men in the present but not previously, is to do with the fact that a number of fundamental non-biological factors 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 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. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in developed countries that it is today.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer today than 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 quite small but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can check if these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, زيوت تطويل الشعر; mouse click the up coming document, and Sweden.