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. Why do women live so more than men do today, and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, صبغ الشعر بالاسود differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially in the past.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, you can verify that these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.