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. What's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? And why the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only some answers. We know there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors which all play a part in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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 افضل شامبو وبلسم women. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in developed countries than it is now.
Let's now look at the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small but it increased substantially over the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you can verify that these two points also apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.