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 is the reason women live much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.

In spite of how much weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men, but not previously, has to relate to the fact that several important 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. Other 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 صبغ الشعر بالاسود men and women. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is 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.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are also applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.