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. Why do women live so more than men do today and how has this advantage increased over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we have only limited answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how much the influence to each of these variables is.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men do today but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that a number of key 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. 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. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was very small however, it has grown significantly over time.

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