Why Women Live Longer Than Men

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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 makes women live more than men do today, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide some answers. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that all play a role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men but not in the past, is to be due to the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 ; this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

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

The second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.