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. Why do women live so longer than men, and why is this difference growing over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men today but not previously, is to have to do with the fact that some fundamental non-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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live for صبغ الشعر بالاسود 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country in the chart, you can verify that these two points are also applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.