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 have a longer life span than men? And why is this difference growing as time passes? The evidence is limited and we have only limited answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women who live longer than males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this isn't 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. 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her brother.

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

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they did 100 years 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 very small, it has increased substantially over time.

It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and العاب زوجية Sweden.