Why Are Women Living 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 live longer than men? And how is this difference growing as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women exists in all countries, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام global differences are significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

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

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small It has significantly increased in the past.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.