Why 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 live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure what the contribution of each factor is.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live longer than men but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these new factors? 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 ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور (click through the following document) men and women. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less that half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

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

The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was extremely small, it has increased substantially in the past.

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