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 makes women live much longer than men today and how does this benefit increase over time? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide incomplete answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know what the contribution of each factor is.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But, this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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, 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, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was quite small, it has increased substantially with time.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, you will be able to check that these two points apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.