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 is the reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which play a significant role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men today however not as previously, has to be due to the fact that certain important 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. There are others that are more intricate. For example, اوضاع الجماع 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In rich countries the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.