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 more than men do today and why has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only incomplete answers. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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, علامات الحمل بولد 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 every country is above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small but it has risen significantly with time.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.