Why Women Are More Likely To 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 are more likely to live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only some answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. 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 men and women. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: العاب زوجية Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small It has significantly increased over time.

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