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 much longer than men today and how does this benefit increase over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly how significant the impact of each of these factors is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men in the present, but not previously, has to relate to the fact that certain fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. 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 above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially during the last century.

You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام and Sweden.