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. Why do women live much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men today however not as previously, has to do with the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, اضيق وضعية للجماع 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 a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often 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 women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

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

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small It has significantly increased in the past.

When you click on the option "Change country in the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.