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. Why do women live longer than men in the present and how is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia, افضل كريم للشعر women live for 10 years longer than men. 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 see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. and women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century 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 however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, افضل كريم للشعر and Sweden.