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 reason why women have a longer life span than men? And how the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence isn't conclusive and we have only some answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the global differences are significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men 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 life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

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