Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 women live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? There isn't much evidence and we only have some answers. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's examine how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

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

Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be quite small, it has increased substantially in the past.

It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, اوضاع الجماع France, and Sweden.